Puppet Master
by Blood Rust
Summary: The tale of the Fates and their decision to do some damage, and the destruction, desperation, and lust that results. DMHG. CAUTION: Plot ahead...a lot of it. Vaguely complex.
1. Winter Wind

**Disclaimer**: To state the obvious: Harry Potter is not mine but J.K. Rowling's, and, unless the Puppeteers have a different idea, I won't ever make money off her characters. Or her plot. Or anything else her brilliant mind may have made up.

**Warning:**This story is rated "M" for a reason, so please do not read unless you are prepared to confront difficult situations, allusions to sex and violence, and mature language. In addition, this story is dark and complex - be prepared to actually have to _think _while reading. This is not a fluffy, easy read. I've done my best to make it different from the mainstream Draco/Hermione stories out there, and hope that the challenge is worth your while.

* * *

Chapter 1 - Winter Wind

The wind blew from the west, carrying whispers of foreign shores and winter storms. The gulls' cries still echoed in its transparent arms, urging the leaves to release their hold on the earth and hover on borrowed wings. Then it changed, suddenly and utterly, to travel from the north. Frost was coming.

The ceiling in the Great Hall showed none of this. The grey sky was unmoving and blank, a solid sheet of pale clouds. The Hogwarts students swirled beneath it, unnoticing and uncaring. The weather held no mystery, no lure. It could tell them nothing of the threat that lay beyond the thick walls.

They were muffled, shooting worried glances toward the staff table. The sea of black was stiller than usual, almost uncertain. They were no longer under the curved nose of Dumbledore. They were alone for the first time. Without guidance, without hope.

Dumbledore saw this and knew. His blue eyes held no twinkle, no laughter; they were sad now, and tired. His students' trust had been betrayed. Few would believe in him after so many were lost, few would understand his helplessness against the battering gale of hatred and disgust. How was it that he, the one wizard Voldemort feared, had no allies? He had assumed that the bright beacon of glory and goodness would draw Hogwarts together, building a white hammer to shatter Voldemort. He had assumed, and was wrong. The banner of shadows hissed many lies, threw many ropes to capture the young hearts of innocence.

He simply hoped that his ending would be painless.

* * *

"How dare he?" Hermione Granger hissed across the table. "I don't understand how he can just _sit _there, do nothing. Doesn't he know we have a war to fight?"

Harry Potter stared down at his plate, moving the last bits of egg around in ever-smaller circles. Ron Weasley sighed, exchanging looks with Harry, doodling idly on a scrap piece of parchment by his elbow. In the beginning, her two best friends had shared her feeling of indignation, but they also knew there was a time to accept reality and move on. Dumbledore certainly seemed to have done so.

"Yeah, we _know_, Hermione. We get it. Can we please talk about something else now?" Ron interrupted.

"Well, I — What do you mean, talk about something else? He's been like that for days. Weeks even. How can you talk about something else?" Hermione grabbed the napkin by her place and pulled it to her lap. Her fingers tightened around the cloth, anxiously pulling it in time to her repeated glances toward the staff table.

"By opening our mouths and changing the subject."

Her hands stilled. "Change to subject to what, Quidditch? Professor Snape? Malfoy? Oh yes, they're _definitely _more important than the war, life and death situations—"

"No, no, those were excellent suggestions," Ron said seriously, waving her sarcastic remarks. He winked at Harry. "So, what do you think of the team this year?"

"Your sister's shaping up pretty well, actually," he said, fork clattering to his plate. "But we're probably going to lose the first few matches. We still need a Keeper and two Beaters, and we haven't scheduled the tryouts." He eyed Ron hopefully. "We'd be glad to have you on the team. At least you have some experience."

Ron shook his head. "Nah. When I quit, I mean to stay quit." He took a large bite out of a piece of coffee cake, scanning the staff table as he did so. It seemed cold, bleak without the warmth of laughter. The chairs that were filled were hidden behind a wall of newspaper print, brimming with reports of death and abuse. "Ah, look at Snape," Ron said, swallowing. "Not even bothering to read the _Prophet _any more. The greasy bat. I'm so glad I don't have him this year."

Hermione dropped her napkin. "Ron! Potions is one of the most important branches of magic, and you could really benefit from it. I mean, didn't you want to be an Auror once? I certainly remember you mentioning it, let's see, _daily_ all last year."

Ron scowled. "If it means I have to take Advanced Potions with that idiot, I'd rather work at a desk in the Ministry, tie and all."

"And Harry! You shouldn't be complaining at all. I still don't know how you got in, after Snape kept on giving you those failing grades last year."

"I wasn't complaining! In any case, I was only failing because he loathes me. It wasn't entirely my fault."

"Oh, come on, Hermione," Ron interjected. "Maybe Harry simply has some undiscovered talent."

"Do you believe that?" she asked. There was a brief silence, filled by the clatter of wagging tongues and crumpling newspapers. "Anyway, Harry, you certainly didn't go out of your way to get on his good side, did you?"

"Well, no, but —"

"Precisely. You should at least make an effort to stay in Advanced Potions. You must have done superbly on your O.W.L.s to get into it." She looked highly disappointed that he hadn't shared that information with her earlier. It had been a complete surprise when she had seen him purchasing the necessary books at Flourish and Blotts' before school.

Harry squirmed a bit. "Well, no. I didn't. I got an E."

"Then how did you get in? You know everyone says he refuses to take anyone without an O. And like you said, he - he, well, he loathes you. He probably wouldn't have let you in even with an O."

"I know. I think that McGonagall might've pulled a couple strings to help me out."

Ron spluttered, spraying bits of coffee cake everywhere. "What?" he asked, eyes wide. "She helped you out but not me?"

"He is Wonder Boy, Weasley," a voice drawled behind him. "You know, Dumbledore's pet, pride of the wizarding world. It's only natural that he gets what he wants after throwing a couple of tantrums."

"Shove off, Malfoy," Harry said. "Just because you were too stupid to pass any of your exams doesn't mean that you should be jealous."

"Jealous, Potter? Me? Remember, I passed allmy O.W.L.s, _without _the help of a teacher," he smirked.

"Yet Hermione still got better grades than you," Ron said. Hermione opened her mouth to argue, to placate. "Not that that's a big surprise, mind you. Ferrets aren't exactly famous for their intelligence, are they? I can't imagine your dad was too pleased, at any rate." Malfoy looked at Hermione as Ron spoke, hatred swimming just below the skin of his eyes. Her mouth closed as she stared back, turning pink under his gaze, until Malfoy looked away with the hard shell of resolve over his eyes. Ron continued, "Between you and me, Malfoy, I'm just glad that you have enough gold to pay off what your brain is missing."

"Shut up, Weasel," he spat. "At least I _have_ the money – begging's a hard life."

Ron shifted in his seat, Harry's hand pressuring his shoulder downwards. Malfoy laughed spitefully and stalked off, Crabbe and Goyle in tow.

"God, I hate him," Ron growled. There was quiet. Harry's hand slowly lifted from his shoulder, returned to his fork and the food still lying on his plate. Ron stared at the girl across from him, finally saying "Hermione?"

She started and glanced up at the clock high above the Great Hall, grabbing her bag. "Come on. We'll be late for Potions, Harry. Snape doesn't look to be in a fabulous mood this morning, and I somehow doubt that it will improve between here and the dungeons."

Ron frowned as Harry, plate clattering to the table, hastened to catch up to Hermione.

* * *

Far from Hogwarts, in a place unplotted on any map, there was night. There were tall mountains, white-cliff faces lost in clouds, cradling a forest. There were moors that ran to the edge of the trees, hills that led to the lofty rock. And there, high on a hilltop, drums sounded. The beat was urgent, quick, resonating in the bones and pounding in the blood of the stray figures below – the Listeners. It pulled and tugged and shoved them toward the source, dragging them faster and faster through the dark trees. At the top, in a crescent-shaped clearing, the dancers moved.

There were four of them. They twisted and swirled and flowed among each other in a continuous circle, moving so quickly that the Watchers never saw their grotesque faces, nor would they have cared. The movement was so beautiful and raw, it was all the Listeners, now Watchers, could do to keep from weeping.

The Watchers became Movers. The drums compelled them to dance, slapping their mortal feet on the cold earth. Hands were raised in tribute to the Foursome as the Movers desperately tried to copy the intricate patterns. All they could hear were the drums. Their minds were blissfully blank. The Foursome knew this and laughed, richly and subtly, their four pitches rolling together to form one organic voice.

They danced on in the night to the drumming from the roots of the trees. New shadows were added to their cloaks. No one ever knew what became of those Listeners, Watchers, Movers. The drumming induced forgetfulness.

The beat rose furiously, maddeningly, but the dancers slowed to stillness. The trees moaned on as the Foursome stood quietly, planted around the orange flames. Claws shot out from the whispering cloaks, scarred and gnarled. The veils over the faces parted slightly with a passing breeze, revealing Age, Innocence, Passion, and Cruelty. They were older than the soil they stood on, than the stars that hung above them.

Black eyes glittered as their scaly hands rose once, twice to meet the dark moon floating just beyond their fingertips. As they descended, threads of night were caught on their broken, bleeding nails. Puppet strings. The Foursome smiled maliciously.

* * *

Hermione was right: Snape was just as foul as he looked to be at breakfast. He slammed the door open, surprising the students who were carefully unpacking their cauldrons.

"From now on, I want cauldrons set up and ingredients organized before I walk in the door. This is Advanced Potions; we will waste no time in here. Five points from each House for your laziness." He shook back his sleeves impatiently, black eyes sweeping the room. Harry glared at him, loathing welling in the pit of his gut. Snape's gaze lingered on him. "Another five for your rudeness, Potter."

"Shut up, Harry! I need to concentrate," Hermione whispered, watching with eagerness as Snape wrote their assignment on the board with a careless swish of his wand.

"I didn't say anything!"

"Shut up!" She breathed out as she saw the potion appear, followed by its complicated recipe. "A truth serum. A weak one, judging from the minimal use of powdered unicorn horn and eagle feathers. I mean, you have to have a bit of it for the potion to work, but I would imagine that Veritaserum has at least double the amount. It's interesting that Veritaserum is clear – I would have expected it to be blue, the universal color of truth. Maybe this one will be, though a very light shade at best."

"Hermione?"

"What?"

"Shut up."

Snape looked coldly at the students in front of him. "This is a truth serum, though very weak and diluted. You would have to drink several entire vials to even begin to feel any effect close to Veritaserum. Still, it is extremely useful for testing the trustworthiness of a person or object. If you put a drop on a letter, for example, you would be able to tell whether the writer is truly who you believe it is and whether he or she is telling the truth, indicated by either a bright blue or red dot. If it turns red, it means that there is something amiss. To measure how much faith you can place in a person, you must take a piece of them and anoint it, whether it is hair, nail, or blood. This can prove to be extremely tricky if the suspect is making use of Polyjuice Potion, however."

Hermione was already calculating, making notes of the quantities of ingredients and the method for brewing, coming to her own conclusions of how to make the serum more potent. She scribbled the recipe on a scrap of parchment for later study, and quickly began to compile the ingredients in the proper order.

"I hate this," Harry muttered after twenty minutes. He squinted at the board, rechecking the same step for the fifth time and caught himself adding the wrong substance. "You'd think he'd at least let us work up to something this difficult."

"We did," Hermione whispered. "It's October already; we should be able to handle this. What did you think the Deception Potion was for last week? It was obvious that this would be our next step, really. I can't imagine why I missed it."

"What would have predicting it done? Given you time to practice?"

"At least time to prepare. This is a very intricate brewing process, and it would have been really beneficial to have already had the recipe worked out. Maybe I would have had some extra time to research the making of Veritaserum then. Do you think we'll work up to that?"

"If it's harder than this, I hope not," Harry said.

"Oh, I do. Think about all the possibilities of twenty cauldrons of Veritaserum!" She looked around the room at the class of Sixth Years excitedly, then lowered her voice further. "The Order could use it against the Death Eaters, forcing them to betray their plans and so forth."

"Miss Granger," Snape said silkily behind her. "I must ask you not to talk. I'm sure that Mr. Potter's potion is not helped by the added distraction." He bent over it with distaste, and, apparently finding an incredible lack of things to criticize, moved on. He added over his shoulder, "If I hear you talking again, Granger, there will be one less cauldron of Veritaserum. And it won't come back."

She reddened and submerged herself back into the rhythm of stirring and adding, adding and stirring. She had forgotten how dangerous it was to mention the war – there were spies listening within Hogwarts for every weakness they could glean from the broken conversations of students. She could not jeopardize the Order and its purpose, especially if she wished to enter when she graduated.

* * *

That night, she dreamed. It was oddly clear, without the misted edges nightly visions usually appear within the eye of the clouded mind.

Deep in the heart of London, a single street lamp shone in the murky morning light. Its light was weak, illuminating a very small portion of the filthy sidewalk littered with cups and black gum. In the shadow of the curb, a rat scuttled to its reeking home in the sewers, its pale tail whipping out of sight almost before it appeared. The silence was deafening, void of the hiss of tires and squeaking of city rodents.

Scarcely after the rat vanished, the quiet shattered. It was a small sound, one that would escape the ears of any human listeners. It was no more than a trickle, a slight burble that erupted from the depths of the darkness to flow past the flickering light. As soon as the sound began, it halted, though the liquid continued to slip past the outskirts of the yellow sphere. It was slow and heavy, sticking to the rough pavement on the street.

Suddenly, the light grew, expanding to fill the street with a bright burst of white light before it snapped and disappeared. In that single instant, the brown stones turned a deep red. A red of rust and copper - the red of the human heart.

The river of blood flowed, spreading in the blackness

Then, out of the distance, she heard footsteps. A match flared and illuminated a pale face, gaunt and thin. He lit a lantern and paused not far from where she stood, as if waiting.

A rat erupted from the sewers and transformed into a crouching man, dressed in a long black robe. He twitched, looking around jerkily and met the eyes of the waiting man.

"Malfoy!" he squeaked. "I didn't think it would be you, after your mistake last year."

"You are not high in the Dark Lord's favor either, Pettigrew. Why do you think you were selected?" he asked coldly, silver eyes glinting.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, drawing himself up to his full height, which was scarcely taller than Lucius Malfoy's shoulder. "This is an honor, the most important task of all."

Malfoy's lip curled. "This is sewer work, hardly above Novice level. My son should be doing this." He looked toward Hermione and she shrank back, fearful of him noticing her. "He should, but he is not ready to take the Mark yet. Soon though, the Dark Lord will have another follower. A faithful one," he added, shooting a suspicious glare toward Wormtail. "Come. We have work to do."

Hermione crept forward to follow and felt her feet splash in running water. Lucius Malfoy stopped and lifted the lantern high, following the stream. She froze as she looked down toward her shoes.

They were submerged in blood.

She screamed in horror as she noticed bones, grey and cracking with age, floating on the current, snagging against her legs. She fell backwards and began to sink, despite her flailing efforts to remain on the surface. As her head slipped under the warm liquid, she woke, blood filling her open mouth.

* * *

**A/N:** This story will be an eventual Draco-Hermione romance, but it's going to be awhile before they begin to notice each other. It's my opinion that slow fics work best, especially since it's such an awkward coupling - makes it natural, you know? There's no possible way that they're going to go from wanting to eat each other's entrails to passionately making out in only a couple chapters. _No possible way_.

The chapters will probably go up sort of irregularly, simply because school has a habit of eliminating all free time. If the reviewers seem to like the story, I'll continue; if not, this will just fade into oblivion and no one ever need read it again. If you're so inclined to be the master of my existence, review by all means. Criticism is welcome - it's the only way to really improve the story and the writing.


	2. Mortality

Disclamer : Still borrowing J.K. Rowling's wonderful characters. Still not making any money. Sigh. Life can be so unfair!

_Chapter 2: Mortality_

The Foursome remained rigid. The moon set and the sun rose. In day, they faded, the midnight strands shimmering in the light. As the shadows lengthened once again, their outlines began to appear. The sun fell and washed them with a bloody trail, and they flickered, becoming reality.

They circled around the fire, crouching with their hands thrust over the flames. They said nothing, only watched the threads twist and turn. Their fingers did nothing to make them move, it was sheer will and fleeting desire. As one, their heads lifted, sniffing the air.

A black shape materialized, rooted in the fire. Long fingers clutched a wand and his hood turned from side to side, measuring up his opponents. The four laughed again, the air throbbing with their many layered voice.

"Mortal," they said together, "you are a fool. Do you seek to conquer us?"

The figure said nothing.

* * *

Hermione retched over the side of her mattress, the blood and bile staining the sheets and the cold floor red. She convulsed until nothing rose, until the taste faded to a metallic ring at the back of her throat. Shuddering, she heaved herself weakly back to rest squarely on the bed, sobbing softly without realizing it. 

She started as a shadow loomed across her blurry vision, tall and forbidding.

"Miss Granger," Professor McGonagall whispered, kindly placing a warm hand on her shoulder, "come with me."

"I don't need to see Madame Pomfrey," she muttered thickly. "I'll be fine now, really."

"Come with me, Granger," McGonagall repeated. "This isn't about your health, but about your mother's."

She sat bolt upright, her heart choking her throbbing veins. "Mum? Has something happened to her?"

"If you would just follow me, we could discuss it," the teacher said, her voice still ringing with that foreign sound of patience and pity, strange on her sharp tongue.

"Professor?" a voice murmured sleepily at the other end of the room. "Is something the matter?"

"Go back to sleep, Miss Brown. This is between me and Miss Granger."

Lavender rolled over, never truly awake, and slipped into dreamless sleep.

Hermione finally scrambled out of bed, padding softly after the erect woman in front of her. She asked no questions, but fears and doubts beat against her skull, her temples pouring with sweat and her breathing ragged. Her sickness, nightmare induced, returned.

"Professor," she called weakly, begging to stop for a moment. She leaned over and heaved again, making nothing but a dry choking noise. Her stomach had been emptied long ago.

"You're shivering," McGonagall muttered, bending over the girl. She put a hand on her forehead, almost recoiling from the shock of meeting boiling skin. She noticed in the torchlight how pale Hermione was, the glassiness of her brown eyes and the strands of bushy hair plastered to her cheeks. "Are you quite sure you don't need to see Madame Pomfrey? The infirmary is open for emergencies."

"_I'm fine._ Just tell me about my mother. What happened?" Hermione stumbled ahead, lost in her agitation and dread.

McGonagall sighed and caught up to the sixteen-year-old, guiding her to Dumbledore's office. "The Headmaster will tell you. Best he does it — something this terrible doesn't deserve a secondary messenger." Privately, she was relieved not to break the news. Hermione's anger was not something to be faced lightly.

The gargoyle guardian sprang aside, allowing the two women to climb the slowly spiraling stair to Dumbledore's office. The round room was silent, filled only with the sound of the numerous portraits' heavy breathing. They peered gravely at the disheveled Hermione under half-closed lids.

"Ah, Hermione," Dumbledore said, waking from drowning thought. "Please, sit." He appraised her slightly green composure and wordlessly handed her a piece of warm chocolate, fresh from the cellar of Honeydukes, a magnificent candy shop in Hogsmeade. "Minerva," he said, turning to the Deputy Headmistress, "would you like to stay?"

"If Miss Granger doesn't mind." She hesitated, but Hermione said nothing. She magicked a chair that floated down beside Hermione's.

"My mum," Hermione prompted. Her stomach welcomed the sugar from sticky hands, and she at least felt able to hear the news.

"Yes. Your mother." Dumbledore sighed and pushed his half-moon spectacles higher on his very long nose. "Hermione, I am afraid to report that your mother is one of many victims in a recent Muggle-torture riot. She is currently in critical condition at St. Mungo's."

There was utter silence.

"St. M-Mungo's? But that's supposed to be just for beings of the magical world, not meant for Muggles!" Hermione objected half-heartedly.

"Certain exceptions can be made. A Muggle hospital could not treat these magical wounds. All the ones who were still breathing when the Order arrived were transported there immediately. Thirty Muggles were tortured," he said sadly, "only seven survived. Of those seven, five have died under the care of Healers."

Hermione paled. She was unaware of how her hands gripped the chair, slowly throttling the life out of it. "She-she's still alive though?"

"At this very instant, yes."

Hermione simply sat there. For the first time since she could speak, words failed her. She held Dumbledore's gaze, detached and numb, as if another controlled her thought and body. As she met his blue stare, however, she felt irritation flare up, the same indignation she felt every time she saw him in the Great Hall. Upon close inspection, he looked simply weary, but it was worse than that. His eyes were calm. Usually, they flickered and twinkled with an inner unquenchable mirth or, when occasion demanded it, concern. But now, they were empty, void of any feeling at all. She realized he didn't care.

"Your father has been notified," he continued, and she noticed the lack of expression in his voice, "but I expect he will want to speak to you. You should let him know that you will return home and remain there as long as it takes for matters to settle."

"How?"

Dumbledore opened one of the many drawers in his desk and retrieved an old-fashioned telephone. It had no wires to connect to any service, and, perhaps even more surprising, was the fact that Dumbledore expected it to work on Hogwarts grounds. He smiled, interpreting her silence correctly. "According to Hogwarts: A History, a text I'm sure you're familiar with, electronics and Muggle inventions will not function properly on the grounds. However, bear in mind that the title contains the word 'history,' in itself the key to breaking rules. For there is no history until we create it, yes?" His long fingers quickly rotated the dial, and he handed the mouthpiece and receiver over to Hermione.

The ring was cut short.

"Da?" Hermione asked, her voice listless. "It's me, Hermione."

She heard quiet weeping on the other end.

"There's been no word. No improvements, but at least she hasn't..." a noisy swallow, "...hasn't died." Carson Granger changed the subject abruptly. "Will school let you come home? I know your grades are important to you, but we need you here. I need you here."

"Yes, I'm coming home for as long as it takes," Hermione answered. "I'll be arriving magically, so when I appear in the kitchen, don't be alarmed."

"Come soon."

"I will." She hung up the phone, white-faced. "Sir? Can I go now?

He flourished his wand at a pen lying on the corner of his desk, mumbling, "_Portus_."

She extended a finger towards the object and hesitated. "Sir? My studies?"

"All assignments will be transferred to you each evening. Your belongings should already be in your home."

"Thank you. Oh, and sir?"

"Yes, Hermione?"

"What about Ron and Harry?"

Professor McGonagall spoke up. "I'll let them know. Don't worry, I'll make it perfectly clear that this is not a kidnaping attempt by You-Know-Who."

"Voldemort, Minerva."

"Thank you." Hermione closed her eyes and touched the pen. It flared blue, then they both vanished.

Professor McGonagall sighed and shook her head. "Poor girl. How long do you think it will take, Albus?"

"Yes, poor girl," Dumbledore agreed, already lost amid his sinking thoughts. McGonagall shot him a worried look, then quietly took her leave.

* * *

"Hermione!" 

She flung herself into her father's pale arms, bursting into tears at the sight of his distraught face. Shushing her, he led her to the couch in the living room, where they collapsed together on the stiff cushions. She sobbed on his shoulder for a long while, feeling the warm hand on her back stroke her as if she was an infant again. She was slowly calmed, and felt herself grow drowsy.

"How will we know whether she'll live?" she asked.

"I expect they'll owl us. That's how I knew about it in the first place, seconds before Professor Dumbledore rang."

"Oh."

They sat in silence, feeling the quiet twist their ears and the strain in the air become almost visible. Their fists were intertwined, neither noticing the bruising force they put on the other's. They remained in the same position in the dark for an hour, two, three.

Finally, they heard a tapping at the window.

Hermione jumped up, ripping the shades open and slamming the glass upwards The owl, small breast jerking after swift flight, glided inside and perched on the lamp sitting on the end table. He held out his leg and immediately took wing after the parchment was gently unwound.

"Here, Da. You read it first," Hermione said, switching on the light.

With shaking hands, he unrolled the tiny scroll. His eyes scanned it and he looked up at Hermione's anxious eyes. He took a deep breath and forced a smile, handing the letter to her.

"She's okay?" Hermione asked, joy springing from her chest. She bit her lip and brought the paper to her eyes, reading the neatly penned words:

_Dear Mr. Carson Granger,_

_The Healers at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Injuries and Maladies are some of the best wizards and witches of our time, chosen expressly for their extensive knowledge of magic. They are specially trained to cure all illnesses, injuries, and undesirable effects from careless spell casting, and there are very few cases that cannot be saved._

_There are few, yet they exist._

_We regret to inform you that Mrs. Joanne Gannet Granger passed away this day, October 23, at 4:16 A.M. The Healers did all they could to cure her, but their skill was not enough to save her fading mortality..._

The paper slipped from her fingers. Behind her, her father fell back on the couch, a dry cry pulled violently from his scratched throat.

"Joanne! My Joanne..." he sobbed. Hermione sank down softly to the indented place beside him, smelling the faint scent of her mother's warm embrace. She raised her arms to catch her mother's spirit, to ensnare her with bones and blood and flesh before she forever joined the masses of steam in the depths of shadow. Her fingers slipped through the easy air, her grip sliding on nothing. She threw out her arms faster and faster, clenching and releasing the empty breath beside her ears, her eyes, her mouth.

"Mum!" she cried, head falling to chest in resignation. Her sweaty palms rested on her legs, stilled at last. "Mum."

A wave of exhaustion and grief enveloped her, and salt poured from her eyes even as they rolled into her skull. She hung limply from the arm of the couch, consciousness destroyed.

* * *

"What do you see?" 

"Nothing. I heard it."

"It's gone now."

"Yes. Follow me. We go to the source, where the lantern light won't shine any longer."

"I know."

The beating was steady, barely audible to the human ear. It required Hearing, just as the coursing blood required Seeing, listening past the surface noises for the mother of life, humanity. Any could Hear, but the knowledge of existence was necessary. The knowledge could be gained from one who has already Heard or Seen or Tasted or Touched or Smelled, but the clearest road to discovery was through Dream.

Hermione swam below the surface, finding living breath in the blood, and keeping the cold black shoes constantly in sight. Submerged in blood, sounds were louder and sharper, allowing her to hear their sloshing footsteps even when the light failed.

"This is it."

* * *

A/N: Right. So, this chapter has actually been sitting in my Document Manager for a REALLY long time, but every time I had a chance to post it was wrecked by some activity or other. (Mothers can be so annoying at times!) I hope that it meets expectations grief can be extremely difficult to write, and it's so easy to just glide over it without really delving into the true feeling. I hope it sounds genuine; I personally have never felt any loss quite so keenly as Hermione and her father did. The closest I came to that was the parting of my babysitter, who cared for me for thirteen years and could almost be considered my mother. But I still see her she didn't die. So not quite the same. 

Third chap's almost all done. Just needs to be edited and such (plus I need to figure out how our two lovebirds are gonna meet) before it's posted. That means an update will probably be up in two weeks or so maybe three, depending on schoolwork and my currently overloaded schedule bear with me!

Okay, thank you's:

Slytherinswn - My first reviewer! Thanks so much for taking time to read my story; it was a definite confidence booster to get such an encouraging review so early on. My parents had no IDEA of what I was so fricking happy about. Kisses!

Hafthand - Wow. I feel so honored for being reviewed by such a renowned author! Awesome feeling, that. Now if only I could get in a similar rhythm to that which you have (for updating and such), I'll be spludoinkle. I'm off to read your story right this minute, actually. Maybe I'll get inspired. (BTW, thanks for the encouragement. Came at a much-needed time.) And for Monsieur Dumbledore, you'll just have to wait and see. It will all come clear (I just have to think of the details first!).

MrsAccioFirebolt - Thank you for the wonderful compliment! I was so happy about it. I was like, Wow! A reviewer! Fun! (As you can see, I'm still kind of giddy about it.) And of course I'll let you know if I figure out how to fix that little problem of ours.

Everyone else who's reading and not reviewing: Thanks for stopping by. There's still a little button down there though, who's begging for some attention.

Kisses to everyone!  
Blood Rust  



	3. Liar

Disclaimer : Still borrowing J. K. Rowling's wonderful characters. Still not making any money. Sigh. Life can be so unfair!

* * *

_Chapter 3 - Liar_

The Fates did not wait for the figure's answer. They raised their arms as one, feeling for the shadowy strings that connected him to their claws. They found them and expertly tugged them, ready to reel them into their dark cloaks.

A string snapped.

Age no longer held sway over the mortal. She shrieked and fell to the ground, bowing to her equal.

Innocence's broke seconds later. She said nothing but sank down, acknowledging the newcomer.

Passion and Cruelty fought for control over this woman, man, mortal. The hooded figure stood rigid, using his fury to repel the Fates. Together, they're strings tore and they prostrated themselves upon the ground.

"I am no mortal," the figure said, voice void of any emotion.

"We see and feel and hear that," they answered.

"I am not your equal."

They hesitated this time. They could not cast strings over each other, but they, even if they could, they would not be able rid themselves of them like this man did. They were the Fates, supreme masters of Life. But he...he was their better.

"Lord..." they whispered.

The man smiled in his black hood. "I am called Snake."

* * *

The daylight was weak, slanting through the white blinds. It barely illuminated blue walls, a wood dresser, bookshelves, a bed. One had to look carefully to see the figure twisted in the white and red sheets, sweat knotting her hair to the pillow. Her face was invisible; no one could see the blue rings around her sunken eyes, the expression of pain and grief frozen forever. She was deeply asleep, her breathing slow and rattling, never-changing. 

"She's been like that for days."

"I'm just glad you thought to call us. I'll do all I can to help her recover."

"I think it's just the shock, that's all."

"That's probably all it is. Grief can do incredible things. Now, Mr. Granger, I'm going to have to ask you to leave for a few minutes. If this works and she wakes, I'll call."

He paused at the doorway, looking mistrustfully at the doctor. She knew it was hard for him to go; he had trusted strangers with his wife, and she had died. The door clicked shut, and she sighed.

"Oh, Hermione," Professor McGonagall said sadly. She brushed the hair from the girl's eyes and examined her briefly. She was starving, thin after four days without food. She knew she could do little if Hermione was determined to stay asleep, if she found dreams the only tonic for pain. So many had died that way, caught in the web of avoidance.

She drew her wand and slipped into Hermione's dream.

Hermione felt her wrist catch behind her, pulling her away from the heartbeat. The voices faded above her, whispering on into some fogged future. Before her, in the present, Professor McGonagall stood stern.

"You have to come back, Hermione."

She said nothing, only turned away to follow Malfoy and Wormtail.

"If you don't leave this place, if you stay dreaming, you won't survive. You can't live like this forever."

"I know. But I'm not ready to come back."

"Your body is. Your mind can adjust, but your body needs the presence of consciousness in order to keep living. If you don't want to be trapped in this world forever, you have to come back with me."

"I don't want to."

"People need you back there. Ron and Harry need you, Hogwarts needs you. The Order needs you. Your _family_ needs you." McGonagall looked past the dullness of Hermione's eyes. "If you die too, your father won't be able to keep living. You're the only thing he has left."

She stopped kicking and looked down into the river. She floated in blood, in death and in life. She had an easy choice: die in forgetfulness or live in pain.

"Better to live than to die. Now."

* * *

When Hermione opened her eyes, her first feeling was of hunger. Her head ached and her body grumbled, and her mind was still blessedly detached. Professor McGonagall bent over her, smiling, and called for her father. 

"I'll leave you now," she whispered to Hermione. "The time turner is about to run out, and I have another class to teach. I would recommend you catch up on homework before you come back, but do try to get to Hogwarts soon." With a loud pop, she disappeared.

"Hermione!" Mr. Granger exclaimed with relief. "You're awake." He stopped halfway to the bed and looked around for Professor McGonagall. "Where'd the doctor go? I never paid her."

"Doctor?" she asked, puzzled.

"Yes, the doctor. I finally called a firm I had seen advertised in the paper a couple of days back, and they sent someone over. The slogan was something like, _You've got questions? We've got remedies! (Works for all minor afflictions including coma-like sleeping, suicide dreaming, and incurable cases of grief.)_ It sounded like it fit, so I called the number." 

"Oh, her cell phone rang to treat another case, so she had to run. She'll probably come by to pick up the check later," she murmured, though she found it amusing that her father, a dentist, fell for a line like that.

He sat down on the bed, suddenly awkward. "If you want to talk — "

"Could I have something to eat?" she interrupted. The death slapped her for the first time since her awakening, and she found herself glad for the lapse in memory, brief as it was.

"O-of course. I'll go down to get it." He stood and waited by the door rather hopefully, as if she'd change her mind and want to talk after all. When she said nothing, he left again, leaving only blackness in his wake.

Over the next week, Hermione slowly recovered. By Tuesday, she was downstairs, looking out the window to the dull routine of Muggle life; by Wednesday, she was practicing magic. Her large pile of homework slowly dwindled, until she was only completing each night's. Her father never stayed in the room when she drew her wand, but seemed oddly disapproving of the entire business. Friday night, over dinner, she announced she was ready to return to Hogwarts.

He started, the fork clattering to his plate. "Already?"

"It's been almost two weeks. I need to go back, catch up. You want me to do well, don't you?"

"Of course I do, but - well, Hermione - I mean —" he stammered, then sighed. "Look, don't you think that going back isn't the best idea? You could stay here, go to the academy across the boulevard, lead a normal life. One that isn't so dangerous."

"Da, it would be dangerous. Don't you understand that V-Voldemort — mum's murderer — isn't just after wizards? He wants to kill everyone; slaughtering Muggles is his entertainment. I need to go back even if it's only to learn to defend myself and to keep you from getting hurt. It's safer for me at Hogwarts than it is here."

"I don't like it."

"I know, but I need to. I couldn't stay here even if it wasn't so important for me to go back. Magic is normal for me now."

He sighed. "Can you wait until Sunday?"

"I think I could do that."

* * *

Saturday night, her trunk was re-packed and waiting to be transported back to her dormitory at Hogwarts. She lay on her back, looking blankly at the ceiling and making lists in her head, something she had learned to do in order to avoid thinking thoughts she couldn't bear to think of. Crookshanks was curled fiercely on top of her, ready to return to his usual haunts as soon as he could. 

The springs squeaked as Mr. Granger sat next to her. She immediately closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep and praying he left her alone. She had no choice, however, except to fake annoyance as he shook her shoulder, startling her from an unreal sleep. He said nothing, but held out his fist.

She sat up slowly, and reached out her hand to take the gift hidden inside his fingers. A braided ring dropped into her palm.

"Her wedding ring. She would have wanted you to have it, I think. It's all I could think of to give to you, before you leave again."

"Thank you," she breathed, slipping it on her middle finger. She stroked it softly, remembering the times when her mother used to take it off her ring finger and let her play with it when she was little, making up her future husband and dream dentist practice. Impulsively, she leaned over and hugged her father. "Thank you," she repeated.

He smiled. "You're going to miss the ceremony," he said.

"I know. I would have like to have been here for that. You're sure she wanted to be cremated?"

"That's what she always told me. She wanted her ashes scattered in that copse in the park — you know, that one where she used to go and paint her watercolors. So we can still visit her, and it's easier than walking to the cemetery." He looked away, grief threatening to overwhelm him. A few minutes later, he said good night in a constricted voice.

Hermione fell asleep to the familiar sound of his weeping.

* * *

The doorbell rang. Hermione, sitting silently next to her father, slowly moved towards the door, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by the idea of returning to society. Mr. Argus Filch, the caretaker of Hogwarts, stood before her, toting a very flowery duffle bag and looking foul. 

"Where's the trunk?" he asked, pushing past her. Hermione pointed, taking a deep breath.

"You sure you want to go back so soon?" Mr. Granger asked for the thousandth time that afternoon. "I don't mind keeping you here; it's not a problem."

Filch straightened from where he had been bending over the trunk and chuckled darkly. "Oh, she's going back alright. Headmaster's orders. I came all this way to get her, and I ain't going back without her. Isn't part of my job, failing."

Hermione shrugged. "I'll be fine. The teachers will understand; I'll be cut some slack."

Filch dragged the trunk over to her, and reached inside the bag to pull out a very feminine, feathered pink hat. He indicated she put it on her head, then followed suit with a second hat pulled from the bag — a pinstriped sailor's cap.

"Right then. These are the portkeys. Should be activated in about twenty seconds." He looked meaningfully at Mr. Granger who looked just as blankly back. "Go on. Say goodbye. She'll be leaving in fifteen seconds for the rest of the year!"

"Oh, right."

They embraced awkwardly, not at all put at ease by Filch's disgusted glares and mumbled countdown.

"Write, okay?"

Hermione nodded.

"Ten seconds!"

"Let me know how the cremation goes."

"Will do. Don't commit suicide."

"Da!"

"Five seconds!" Filch screeched.

"I was just—"

"Four!"

"—kidding!"

"Three!"

"Can't a man—"

"Two!"

"—make a joke?"

"Leggo, leggo! Activating—"

"Da, I love—"

"NOW!"

Her gut was wrenched forward, and she swirled away, Filch and her trunk glumly following. A moment later, she landed in Dumbledore's office and promptly fell over on the word "you."

"Here you go, sir," Filch said smugly, passing over the duffle bag and hat.

"Thank you, Argus. That will be all." Dumbledore looked kindly over at Hermione kneeling on his floor. "Take a seat, Hermione."

She shakily stood up, and seated herself in front of him.

"I'm glad that you decided to return to us so soon, Hermione. We all thought it would be another week, at least. Is everything settled at home?"

"Yes. Well, no." She did not go on.

"I see. But you were ready?"

"I couldn't take it. She was everywhere."

Dumbledore was silent for a moment, and rocked back in his chair. "You have to be careful of that, Hermione," he finally said. "Sometimes, running away from the consequences helps — but only for a time. It will catch up to you, and then you have to face what happened and either accept it or let it break you. I find that the possibility of one breaking is just increased the longer you run."

"I'm not really running from it," she protested. "I'm just avoiding it for awhile, until I can handle it."

"Just don't ignore it too long."

She squirmed, but said nothing. She refused to meet his eyes; the knowledge of what she'd find there — that absence — was too frightening for her to face so soon.

"I expect you want to see your friends," he said, smiling. "Go on, you'll probably find them slaving away at homework. I understand that the Gryffindors had a particularly trying Potions lesson on Friday — Professor Snape mentioned something about brewing Veritaserum on Monday and that he wouldn't trust a bunch of Sixth Years with the process until they had done 'proper researching and application' beforehand."

"Thank you, sir."

She wandered down the spiral staircase and through the halls, trying to prolong the eminent moment of pity and questions. She found herself unwilling to face the school quite yet, and instead found the worn path to the library, where she hoped to find some solitude. Time, too ample and empty in her father's house, was unmercifully short in Hogwarts' walls.

At Madame Pince's desk, she borrowed a quill and some parchment, half-thinking she would get begin her Potions essay. She hardly needed the texts supplied there for she knew plenty about Veritaserum already, but there were still facts to be checked and re-checked. She set the supplies down on a table in the corner, and lazily wandered through the rows, hand trailing in the dusted volumes.

In a dim, twisting aisle she didn't recognize, she stopped, her eyes caught on a crumbling book that sported the title Myths You Thought Weren't Real: True Stories About Gods and Fate. She found her hand reaching for it, rising limply to grasp the spine. Only when her fingers brushed it, she found a pale hand already fisted around it.

Draco Malfoy jumped, almost dropping the book, and cursed as several pages fell out. Hermione immediately dropped to pick the cracking parchment, handing them up to the boy above her.

"You're back," he said, for lack of anything better to say.

"Just now. I heard that there was an essay for Potions due, and I thought I might as well get a start on it." She stood and brushed off her robes.

"You're far away from the Potions aisle," he said suspiciously. He noticed her gaze in the book's direction, and tightened his grip, shielding the title from view. "Come on, Granger, don't play dumb with me." She looked at him blankly. "Why the hell were you spying on me?"

"Spying on you?" she repeated incredulously. "I wasn't. Do you honestly believe that I'd reach for the same book you did, therefore drawing attention to myself, when I was _spying_ on you?"

He shrugged. "Seems like the most likely reason you'd be in a section filled with Dark texts."

She looked around her, curiosity increased. "Dark texts? Really?"

He chuckled. "Funny, Granger." Malfoy turned to leave, and called over his shoulder. "I did learn one thing about you today."

"Oh? What's that?"

"That you're a damn bad spy, and an even worse liar."

* * *

A/N: My God. That took so long to post! Amazing really, how life just keeps throwing all these little distractions at you, and completely takes away all time for fun things...such as POSTING CHAPTERS ON I tried at least one hundred times this weekend, but no... I have to go practice the violin or clean my room or eat dinner or...or...you get the picture. 

Anyways, the fic should start picking up from here. I've written the next two chapters, so they should be up in a couple of weeks, life permitting. I need to edit them of course, and need to plan a couple of er...uncomfortable encounters. Give me two weeks, at most. With luck, they'll be up this weekend.

Woohoo!

Okay, thank-you's:

Ally: Hello, darling. Thank you so much for the review...those compliments made my day. It's so glorious to hear that I actually got a chapter down. Chap. 2 took a lot of will-power to post because it's so...dramatic. And the emotional tension is SUPPOSED to be so high, it was a difficult to know whether I conveyed it or not. As the author, you can't read it without being biased. Anywho, I hope that the above chapter started picking up a little bit, and won't completely turn you off. Update A Reason soon, dear!

Lorett: Thank you so, so, so much for reviewing! It was one of the highlights of my week, opening up your email and seeing all this sage advice from a respected author. (BTW, I didn't actually mean to imply in previous A/Ns that I was looking for help with the plot, just with the writing itself. Oops.) But I ADORED your review...and I am now writing a (very long) outline – I began that night, and I think it's up to three, four pages. (Funny how I didn't think of doing one; I took a Creative Writing course last semester, and learned just how important those things are. All comes clear with forty-five minutes of effort!) Hope you read again soon...I'm off to check up on Keys (how dare they close down your account? Idiots!) right this second. Kisses! (Oh, before I forget...you'll tell me if you get that problem fixed, won't you? I would love to follow in your footsteps, as would Mrs.AccioFirebolt, I'm sure.)

Slytherinswn: Your little blips of encouragement are so nice to get...I love opening up my mail box and seeing: Review Alert! with your name at the end. Warm and fuzzy feelings!

Everyone else who's reading and not reviewing: Thanks for stopping by. There's still a little button down there though, who's begging for some attention.

Kisses to everyone!  
Alison


	4. Fairy Tales

Disclaimer: Still borrowing J. K. Rowling's wonderful characters. Still not making any money. Sigh. Life can be so unfair!

_Chapter 4 - Fairy Tales_

Snake watched the Fates, prowling around the edge of their fire. They worked only in laughter and drumbeat, never in words. However, they were willing to take orders, as long as they were few.

As he gazed, two figures clarified in the flames. One was a witch and the other a wizard, hanging limply. Passion and Cruelty chuckled, flicking their puppets idly. They jumped to life. Their faces were lit by the orange fire, and Snake gasped in recognition and triumph. Entranced he moved forward.

"Good...good..." he whispered. "Now, trade them..."

Passion's midnight threads released their hold on her puppet and they squirmed over to the other. They briefly tangled with Cruelty's iron chains before gently nudging them off. Cruelty's chains crossed the space and lifted the crumpled doll. She snapped the figure's head up and the two were animated once again.

"You will still have power over the other, Passion," Snake told her. "But this will be your new charge. They need to learn." Cruelty's silence vocalized her anger. "You, too, will have a part. But wait until they're vulnerable."

He resumed his circling. His plan was working wonderfully.

* * *

Hermione turned to the books lining the aisle, scanning the titles. There was no other copy of Myths You Thought Weren't Real: True Stories About Gods and Fate, nor did she understand why Malfoy was so interested in it. He didn't seem one for fairy tales. She glanced at his receding back, and realizing she had no idea of how to find her way back to the main area of the library, jogged after him. Just as he rounded the corner, however, she slowed to a stop. 

The bookshelves resounded with echoes from a hollow crash as a book fell into her path. She looked at it warily; dark texts had internal motives, too hidden and obscure for any but the authors to understand fully. Yet when she attempted to step around it, a wind flew down the aisle, causing the cover to fall open and the pages to flutter. She knelt beside it, curiosity overcoming her caution.

At the top of the page, she read:

_There, at the Center of the World, at the Heart of all mortality and immortality, where Death and Life meet, a wound gapes wide. From there, time weeps forward to penetrate the dream reality that coats the human world, the single connection to the true happenings of the universe. Few know of this — fewer yet have seen this — though it has been known to be glimpsed through Dream, when an individual is chained to the Heart in a line of events that will determine the future of all things Sensed and Unsensed..._

She started with surprise. Hastily, she clapped the book shut and shoved it under her arm, looking around for Malfoy. He was gone.

She hesitantly stepped out of the alcove, hoping she would recognize where she was. She followed the only passageway, twisting in dark musty walls and avoiding the candles that haphazardly lit the corners on cold spikes. It was a surprise, then, when she stepped into the white light of the library's familiar windows. She glimpsed her table around the edge of a shelf of Potions texts, yet when she turned to look at the passage she had emerged from, there were only yellowed books marching into the horizon.

* * *

"Hermione!" a startled Harry said, grinning. "You're back!" 

"Finally," Ron added. "I thought I was going to fail Charms without you. Did you hear what Flitwick did to us?"

"I heard you were sick," Ginny Weasley interrupted. "How are you feeling now?"

"What?" Ron gaped. "You were sick? From what, missing all those lessons?" He laughed at his own joke, then turned serious. "I didn't hear about that. What happened?"

"You were supposed to owl us," Harry said sternly.

"How? I don't have an owl," Hermione answered. There was an uncomfortable silence as the others waited for her to answer their concerned questions as she desperately thought of ways to avoid the subject. "So," she said, licking her lips nervously, "what'd I miss?"

Ron opened his mouth to pursue her health, but Ginny quickly elbowed him. "N-nothing," he answered. "I mean, the teachers have been a pain in the ass recently, but no big lessons. Professor Nockford has completely loaded us up on Defense of the Dark Arts homework — we're supposed to start shielding spells soon."

"You won't believe what our next lesson is going to be!" Harry laughed. "We're supposed to learn how to conjure Patronuses."

"Really?" Hermione said keenly. "Any idea on how she's going to do it? I mean, we learned with you, but it's like you said: it's nothing compared to when you have to face the real thing."

"She mentioned something about asking Dumbledore if she could take us to the gates and we could face a real dementor, but I don't think Dumbledore will go for it," Ron said.

"Of course he won't!" Hermione said. "It would be too dangerous. Remember, Voldemort is still on the loose and the dementors are on his side. How do you think Lucius Malfoy got out of Azkaban so easily?"

"Money," Ron and Harry chimed together.

Hermione smiled and sat back, her face cracking with the unfamiliar expression. "Speaking of Malfoy," she said, "something weird happened in the library today, before I came up here."

"What?" Ron asked, looking hurt. "You said hello to Malfoy before coming to see us?"

"Shut up, Ron. Like I was saying, Dumbledore had mentioned something about Snape giving us an outrageous Potions essay —"

"—greasy git—"

"— _shut up, Ron_ — and I thought I might as well get a start on it before tomorrow. So I was looking through some of the books there and lost track of time. But when I looked up, I was in a completely different section of the library, one I had never seen before. What was weirdest though, was that Malfoy (the younger) was there too, and he said it was a section full of Dark texts."

"Did he take one?" Ginny asked.

"Yes. One called Myths You Thought Weren't Real: True Stories About Gods and Fate, or something. I don't know what it's about."

"Seems pretty obvious, doesn't it?" Harry mused. "He's looking for bedtime stories to scare off the nightmares. I never knew Malfoy was a sucker for fairy tales!"

"You're not to go shouting this around, okay?" Hermione said. "I somehow don't think that it would be a good idea."

"What do you mean it wouldn't be a good idea? He would kill us!" Ron said, laughing.

"Precisely."

"Oh," he said, his face falling.

"Yeah, remember that look he gave Hermione the day before she left? He already wants her blood," Harry added.

"Maybe that was his revenge," Ron suggested hopefully. "Luring Hermione into this aisle of Dark texts and then leaving her to starve. Except she got out."

"I don't think that was revenge," Hermione said uneasily. "I think it's still coming."

"Now, what about you? Did you take one? We could probably get Malfoy in a lot of trouble for being in that section," Ginny said.

"And I could get in just as much trouble." Hermione hesitated before saying, "I didn't take a book. It seemed too dangerous."

Both boys cursed. "We could've done a lot with those!"

"And fried yourselves in the process."

Her gaze wandered to the stairs, thinking longingly of her four-poster bed at the top of the tower.

"Long day?" Ginny asked.

"Very."

"Then let's get you upstairs. It won't help you to get better if you stay up till eleven and have to get up early tomorrow to go to lessons." Hermione smiled, glad of the fact that her exit was offered, not gracelessly shoved in their faces.

"Don't bother saving any dinner for me," she said, rising and clutching the book to her chest.

The trio exchanged looks.

"Er, Hermione," Ron said, "dinner finished three hours ago."

She stopped and turned back. "What? But I got here at two o'clock!"

Harry looked just as startled. "You did?"

"Yes! I went to the libra– oh. Of course, that Dark alcove. I guess time must have a different pattern there or something."

"Time have a different pattern?" Ron scoffed. "Where the hell did that come from? Nah, you just lost track of time, that's all. You said it yourself earlier."

"That must be it," she answered absently, her mind already spinning with possibilities. "I'll see you in the morning, then."

She quickly undressed and settled onto the bed, determined to have a second look at the book. She drew the red curtains shut and placed the book carefully in front of her. In privacy, she could afford a closer look. It was a handsome book, bound in blue leather with gold stitching. There was no title on the spine, but across the front, an elegant hand had scrawled the word Sense in glittering ink. There was no author.

She tried to open to the first page, but the covers remained firmly shut. Even when she pulled with all her strength, the book was closed, locked with an invisible binding that would only open for the lost key. She threw it to the floor in frustration, hoping halfheartedly that it would magically flutter open like it did in the library. It didn't.

She lay back on the bed, head softly resting on the pillow. If she couldn't answer her questions that night, maybe she could at least sleep. Her Dream was waiting.

She was deeply asleep when the book rose to her sinking chest, cracking open to reveal the mysteries contained in simple ink and thought. There, on the first page, lay her fate, sealed and unable to change save in death.

When she woke, the book lay on the floor, still closed.

* * *

A/N: Hello, hello loyal readers and reviewers! Sorry there's a lack of Draco/Hermione interaction in this chapter, but I had to bring back Ron and Harry and Ginny SOMEHOW. There's another bit of action in the next chapter though, but like I said before, it's going to start fairly low-scale. Give me five chapters, and both of them will utterly at my mercy... 

Thank-you's:

Ally: Hello, dearest. Sorry to delay the development of our luscious hero and heroine, but Draco will be back in full force next chapter. And as for the Fates...they always remain fairly obscure. Snake will be explained, of course, but the others are simply what their name implies: destiny. Or puppet masters. Whichever. Hope this next installment passed the Ally-test!

Lorett: Darling! I was just over at Keys, but didn't have time to review. Expect me over there tonight though, and I'll leave you a glowing review, as usual. I keep meaning to check out that other author, but time just seems to be flying by...there is most definitely no time for anything I want to do anymore...sob. I still can't believe it's been ten days or so since my last update. Whew. Anywho, thank you so much for the compliments. As a first-time writer, it helps to know someone out there is reading.

Kristina Chang: Welcome aboard, dear! So glad you like the last couple of chapters...I worked really hard not to entirely overdo the drama. I completely agree about the whole thing about Hermione's abusive parents...it gets old. I wouldn't have killed her mother off, but I didn't quite have a choice.

Slythswn: Hello, hello! Glad to see you approved of the last chapter. (By the way, of course Filch has to be an ass...that's who he is! No, not really. There's a story behind him, too, but I don't think he identifies with the moment Hermione and her dad shared - one of a loving family. Kids were never his thing.) Kisses!

Everyone else who's reading and not reviewing: Thanks for stopping by. There's still a little button down there though, who's begging for some attention.

Kisses to everyone!  
Alison 


	5. Control

Disclaimer : Still borrowing J.K. Rowling's wonderful characters. Still not making any money. Sigh. Life can be so unfair!

_Chapter 5 - Control_

The wind whistled softly through the fire, slicing its warmth with daggered nails. On the flames' borders, Cruelty crawled, her breath sweet with rotting malice. Her eyes, pits invisible with depth, shone upon the figure of her sister, happily playing with the puppets. Her time had come, only to be robbed of her control a moment later. Her chains hung limp around the puppet's neck, begging to choke, to squeeze, to break, but without the permission to do it.

Snake watched her as she shifted, snuffled, and hissed the fire to ice. The trees groaned in the background, begging desperately to drum once again, to dance, to create future and pain. Yet his word was absolute; no one, nothing, dared cross it.

Control is sweet, when tasted by those in power.

The slave crawled on.

* * *

"Miss Granger," Snape purred. "I see you decided to join us this morning. I think I speak for all of us when I say we're...honored." 

Hermione shifted her weight nervously.

"I assume you have my essay?"

She wordlessly handed it over, scrawled hastily over breakfast. It was slightly splattered with orange juice.

His lip curled. "Thank you. You may take a seat next to Mr. Malfoy there, up front where I can keep an eye on you." He turned to the board. "Five points from Gryffindor for your tardiness."

She set her cauldron down, her shaking hands careful to avoid any clamor. She quickly unpacked her ingredients and took out her notes, noticing with some satisfaction that her recipe for the Veritaserum was almost entirely correct.

"So, Granger, like the book?" Malfoy whispered.

Hermione dropped the metal measuring cup full of powdered Sphinx claw with a loud clang. Snape looked up from his desk to stare at her murderously. "What book?" she hissed, hurriedly sweeping the golden powder back into the cup.

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times: Don't play dumb." His eyes traveled her robes. "The look doesn't suit you."

She blushed with anger. "I didn't take a book! You shouldn't have been there in the first place, Malfoy —"

"Nor you."

"— so don't talk about being _dumb _with me!" she finished in a loud whisper.

He chuckled drily. "Well, let me know how the book turns out. I've always wanted to know how to Sense. My father's always stressed its importance — it's a very Dark art."

She opened and closed her mouth soundlessly. "Right," she managed. "I'll let you know."

She felt a swirl of dry air blow past her cheek, and turned to find Snape standing above her. "Miss Granger," he murmured, "I must beg you to seal your lips, life-threatening as your conversation may be. You're disturbing the other students." She looked over his shoulder to find each and every one of them submerged in their work. He lowered his voice further, casting a meaningul look at Harry. "Many of them cannot be distracted."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Another five points." He shifted his murderous eyes to Harry, murmuring under his breath as he squinted at the recipe.

"Old bat," she muttered. "Ron was right about you."

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't insult the Head of our house," Malfoy whispered. "Better yet, keep your mouth shut entirely. Some of us — such as the ones doing _work_ — cannot be disturbed."

"What, Malfoy, don't have enough of a brain to multitask? You know, it's a real shame your mother didn't teach you to walk and talk at the same time. Or does she even know how?"

"Keep my mother out of this," he snarled. "If you have a brain, use it. That was me telling you to shut up _politely_. If you won't, I can make you." His silver eyes glittered. "Don't tempt me."

She bristled but said nothing. As much as she hated to surrender, there was nothing she could do in a biased classroom. Her grades, her reputation, mattered to much to her. The two worked in tense silence for many minutes, hands and eyes flying through the recipe. Hermione began to slowly relax, almost racing to complete the Veritaserum before Malfoy. If she focused only on the words, she could almost believe she was enjoying herself. Almost.

It happened then. That odd feeling, the one that felt as if her mind disconnected from her body. Suddenly, she became spectator as another being stepped into control. And there was nothing she could do to stop it.

She watched her arm reach forward, fingers stretching to clutch the scarab beetle lying face-up on the table. And there, at the same time, was Malfoy's hand, diving under her to rest his palm over the green belly. Her hand landed on top of his, warm skin touched the cool knuckles. And stayed there.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him turn to look at her in suspicious surprise. Even worse, she felt her fingers contract around his, clutching his hand in promise. Promise? Of what? Her brown eyes turned to meet his, and then, just as suddenly, the stranger's control was broken.

She snatched her hand back from the table.

Malfoy opened his mouth, probably to make some crack about her "desire" for him, but then thought better of it as she plunged under the table to retrieve another scarab beetle for her potion. When she straightened, it was only to see him bent over his potion in concentration, the offending scarab beetle lying forgotten on the table. She took her cue from him, and ignoring the instinct to explain herself, she turned back to her very orange potion.

When the class ended, the Veritaserum had transformed into a crystal clear liquid, reflecting the cold ceiling at the bottom of her cauldron. She glanced over to Malfoy's, and saw that he was sweating to change it from puce to transparent. She hesitated, then pushed the scarab beetle towards him.

"You forgot it," she said. "If you want to correct it, all you have to do —"

"I know what I have to do!" he spat. "Bug off, Granger."

She stared at him, hurt. No one had dismissed her help before. She sniffed haughtily, then primly dipped a flask into the potion and stoppered it. She placed it on Snape's desk carefully before sauntering back to her cauldron, neatly packing it with a terse wave of her wand. She spent the remainder of the period watching Malfoy strive to correct the potion — and succeeding, she admitted grudgingly.

* * *

She found a chair close to the fire, and hunched over Sense, entirely absorbed by its fast-shut cover. Perhaps it was because of her intense concentration that she didn't see the redhead bending over the back of the worn armchair, eyes slowly following Hermione's probing finger. 

"I thought you said you didn't take one."

Hermione jumped. "Ginny! What do you mean, didn't take one?" she asked innocently, rearranging her hair. The book dropped to the floor.

"A Dark text," she said flatly, bending to pick it up.

"No! Don't pick it up!" Hermione said, shoving Crookshanks off her lap and grabbing it. "It's not safe." Ginny stared at her, one eyebrow cocked accusingly. Hermione was silent for a guilty moment, then said, "I lied."

"So I see." She sank down beside Hermione, tall frame dwarfing the older girl's. She continued, voice adopting an awed tone. "Wow, Sensing. Of all the things to choose, that's a Dark one." She looked at Hermione appreciatively. "Why'd you take one?"

"What, and miss a chance like that?" Hermione grinned. "You've got to be crazy."

Ginny laughed. "That doesn't excuse you for lying, you know."

"I know," Hermione sighed. "Let's just keep this between you and me for awhile though, okay?"

"Why?"

"Too complicated. Ron and Harry would take it the wrong way, assume things that aren't true."

"Maybe so." Ginny stared at the cover for awhile, deep in thought. "Figure out how to open it yet?"

"No. It opened for me once, but hasn't done it since. I think I have to be in a certain mood, or something. Maybe actually Sensing."

"As if you know how to Sense!" Ginny scoffed. "Hardly any wizards are left that know how to do it, though I know Dumbledore knows a little of it. Sirius and James dabbled in it, too — I heard Mum yelling at Sirius once for mentioning it once in front of Fred and George." She was quiet for a moment, smiling in memory at the serious man who had once been Harry's godfather. "Mum apparently thought the twins would end up killing themselves if they learned what Sensing could do."

"What _does_ Sensing do?"

"What? Don't tell me you haven't heard about it?" she said, aghast.

"I did grow up in a Muggle environment," Hermione reminded her. "Books can't make up for all those lost years."

"Oh, right. Well, it's a very ancient form of magic; I'm not quite sure why everyone calls it Dark, because it's far older than evil. I suppose it's because You-Know-Who tried to use it some, but failed. Two or three of his Death Eaters found out how, though — I know Lucius Malfoy knows how, for example — but I think the other two were killed in the war. To be honest, no one quite knows how it works or what it's purpose is anymore; all we know is that it allows the one who Senses to see into Reality, or the mechanics of how our world works." She looked down at Hermione's fascinated face. "Get all that?"

Hermione shrugged. "Enough, I think."

Ginny looked back at the book. "Well, when you figure out how to open it, let me know. I would love to learn how." She glanced over at the table in the corner at which Harry and Ron were working. "Come join the homework party?"

"Finished all mine," Hermione answered absently. "I think I'll stay here and work a little longer."

Ginny nodded. "Right, then." She stood and walked away, unaware of what her explanation had unlocked.

* * *

The walls pulsed scarlet, shedding a light that was truly not light at all, but pure power. The red blood paled in comparison. Hermione's head rose above the gentle waves, and gazed at the Wound between the black boots. It was black, a tremendous gash from which the blood poured forth in a frothing mass, carrying the skeletons of infants, cripples, and brittle men and women. 

Wormtail watched the torrent in openmouthed terror. "W-what is it?" he asked, involuntarily inching his way closer to Lucius Malfoy.

Malfoy laughed and pushed his cloak away. "Time. We are standing in time."

He calmly looked about him, appraising the strong flesh walls and listening. The subtle beat vibrated the air, thundering above them. He reached inside his black robes and drew forth a small midnight sheath. He drew a narrow knife, glittering silver, and examined its length.

"And we, Master Wormtail, control it," he said.

* * *

A/N: Hola! Sorry this chapter was so long in coming...but I'm pretty happy with the result. I think I can safely say that the boring utility chapters (to borrow your phrase, Ally) are all over. Or at least the set-up ones. Now, we can finally get to the good stuff. Things are going to start moving quickly – or appear to be moving quickly – romance-wise. I just want to remind you that **these actions are not their own**. I hope I conveyed it enough, but these little caresses of feelings are **not** the actual feelings kicking in yet. So please don't flame me for moving it along to quickly as there is no emotional attachment yet! 

Right. So, in any case, I'm interested to hear what you thought. And in the meantime, there are thank-you's!

Ally: Hey, dear. I'm so glad that you like my Fate and Nightmare scenes! To be honest, right now they're my favorite part of the story to write. I can be absolutely as poetic and creative and crazy and unbelievable as I want simply because they are all my own creation. Well, not Lucius and Wormtail. But close enough. Anywho, I hope that the next chapter in A Reason isn't too long in coming...though I guess I can forgive you if it is. I mean, you've been updating so rapidly recently. Huh, maybe I should get that initiative started, eh? Well, I've got a whole bunch of chapters written (fine, just the next one and part of the seventh), it's just the posting that takes me forever. Grrr...never enough time, never enough time!

Lorett: Hiya, darling. Since they deleted your account, I can't remember what you wrote me! Argh! I usually save my reviews – the alerts or whatever – but somehow yours must have slipped through the cracks. Darn. Well, in any case, here's some Draco for you. I'm pretty sure he'll be a constant character for awhile – definitely for the next five chapters – so we'll see how he develops with me as his supreme master. (Ooh...dirty thoughts. Supreme master? Nice.) Off the topic of me, I completely forgot to go to adultfanfiction to review! I've been saving your email as a reminder, but I deleted it by accident the other day. SO AS SOON AS I FINISH THIS UPDATE, I WILL REVIEW! Got that, Alison?

Foamy: Hello, love! I was so excited to hear from you; you CANNOT imagine how thrilled I was to find out it was you. I honestly did a little dance around my computer screen. (I don't think my parents were so happy though...I'm surprised they didn't throw me in an institution.) I keep meaning to look up your stories, by the way, and review some more, but my life has been so busy. It's the weekend now, though, so I should be able to work on it. At least, I'm crossing my fingers. Okay, back to your review. I did really take your suggestions to heart. Unfortunately, I had already written this chapter and there wasn't any way to make it longer so the breaks made sense, but I wrote a lengthy chapter 6 just for you! And I completely understand what you mean about talking differently...I'm a teenagers still, and rolling with the slang, so it's easier for me to try to keep it modern. (Personally, I like that formal way of speaking...maybe I should adopt it.) Anywho, off to catch up on your wonderful stories! Dum da da dum (personal theme song)!

Alexis: Hey girlie! I honestly have no idea why I'm writing you a note, seeing as I just saw you at school all of three hours ago. And we have established the fact that this is a DARK FIC several times already. But that's okay. We can make up for the depressing-ness in your fic! (We still need to work on that, don't we? You're supposed to email the chapter to me soon so I can proofread it!) Anywho, I still think the proper verb is "give" not "have." Si? (Remember P.E.? Class that is spawn of the Devil?) Right. So review ENCOURAGINGLY this time, or else I'll have to give you lessons. Right. Right right. Er, hugs! Kisses! Talk to you soon!

Slyswn: Hey hey dear! I was happy happy happy to get your review, as per usual. Actually, when I got to your review, it set me to thinking about the D.A. Professor. I originally wasn't really going to include one – you know just little allusions to Prof. Hunch (Nockford, I think, actually) here and there – but I decided that I needed one. Only, I decided (belatedly) that I was going to make the "he" a "she." Not enough female D.A. professors out there. So...in the next chapter, meet Prof. Nockford. Sorry for the (heh heh) confusion. If I really get around to it, I'll repost the chapter. With luck, everyone will forget there ever was a Prof. Hunch. Oh, and as for the "Grinch" (awesome name for Filch...had me cracking up), I'll doubt I'll get around to him. I was referring more to the fact that every character in a story has his/her reasons for acting a certain way. It's my personal opinion that Filch's reasons are very sad. Maybe I'll fit it in there somewhere...

Taintless: Ho there, dahling! (Sorry...just running out of ways to say hi...heh heh heh...) I was blushing furiously when I received your review. It means a lot to me when reviewers say those kinds of things. Aw, shucks. You've got me turning red all over again! Hope you keep reading and dropping those gems of reviews! My grin is honestly still on from it.

Psychotic-Betty: Hi, dear. (I love your name, by the way. Seriously awesome. Would you kill me if I stole it?) I was grinning like a maniac when I read what you wrote me. Seriously. Now that I wrote an outline (thanks Lorett!) the pieces are fitting together really nicely. I was so happy to hear that someone thought the same! Your review gave me that little boost of confidence (and encouragement) that I really needed to hear...especially right then. Kisses!

Everyone else who's reading and not reviewing: Thanks for stopping by. There's still a little button down there though, who's begging for some attention.

Kisses to everyone!  
Alison 


	6. Hands

**Disclaimer** : Still borrowing J.K. Rowling's wonderful characters. Still not making any money. Sigh. Life can be so unfair!

**A/N**: I originally wasn't going to include much of the D.A. Professor, but one of my reviewers (**slyswn**) inspired me.Hm, some of my dearly beloved reviewers said that they weren't quite sure what was going on (mainly** Lorett**, **Taintless**, and **Alexis**) with our brilliant heroes. So I'm going to give you a hint and a promise. Ready? Now, this hint doesn't take too much brain power: Look at the title of the story. Think of what happened last time. Remember that all these little sections (you know, the three different plots I have going here) WILL TIE IN WITH EACH OTHER. Maybe some earlier than others...That help at all? Hope so! Er...if not, know that I'll be explaining it in about four chapters or so. Remember, the characters don't know either...you're supposed to be a little in the dark. 

And (drumroll here), I've decided to add a little "Last Time" blurb to my stories! **Lorett** (darling that she is) suggested I try that, so I hope that it'll be a little easier to get back into the rhythm of things. Let me know whether it helps, should be longer, etc. It'll only be for the HG/DM plot, but I hope that's okay. Okay. I think that's it...so here goes. A little action for the weekend!

* * *

_**Last Time**:_

"What _does_ Sensing do?" Hermione asked.

"What? Don't tell me you haven't heard about it?" Ginny said said, aghast.

"I did grow up in a Muggle environment," Hermione reminded her. "Books can't make up for all those years."

"Oh, right. Well, it's a very ancient form of magic; I'm not quite sure why everyone calls it Dark because it's far older than evil. I suppose it's because You-Know-Who tried to use it some, but failed. Two or three of his Death Eaters found out how, though — I know Lucius Malfoy knows how, for example — but I think the other two were killed in the war. To be honest, no one quite knows how it works or what it's purpose is anymore; all we know is that it allows the one who Senses to see into Reality, or the mechanics of how our world works." She glanced at Hermione's face. "Get all that?"

Hermione shrugged. "Enough, I think."

Ginny looked back at the book. "Well, when you figure out how to open it, let me know. I would love to learn how." She glanced over at the table in the corner at which Harry and Ron were working. "Come join the homework party?"

"Finished all mine," Hermione answered absently. "I think I'll stay here and work a little longer."

Ginny nodded. "Right, then." She stood and walked away, unaware of what her explanation had unlocked.

* * *

_Chapter 6 - Hands_

At the corner of the fire, Age hunched protectively over a single flame. With clawed fingers, she deftly reached out to stroke it, tender with gentle touches and soft hisses. It turned the color of emptiness for a single moment, then sparked again in defined form, straight-backed and bearded. She chuckled sweetly, breath forming a fist that drove downwards onto his spine.

The thumb pressed, forming the beautiful arch of the elderly. A forefinger hooked the chin, bringing his eyes upwards and elongating the neck in a permanent leer of short-sightedness. His mind, powerful but not untouchable, was clouded, perception covered with a sheer veil.

She was the crippler, agent of wisdom and death. Though she gave wisdom, it was simple to take it away.

And break the victim.

* * *

"Hermione!" 

The red curtains surrounding her four-poster bed created an artificial night that, after a long night of homework and Dreaming, made it extremely hard for her consciousness to swim out of the depths of nightmares. Hermione groaned and rolled over, striving to return to the darkness even for another moment of rest — something she seemed to be unmercifully short of these days.

"Hermione! Wake up!"

"Go 'way, Ginn..." she mumbled into the soft puddles of her pillow.

Light pounded her closed eyelids, piercing the escaping blackness with a sharp violence that wrestled her from the throes of sleep. She moaned again and put her hand over her eyes to shield them, however briefly, from the fingers of daylight and wakefulness.

"Come on! You're late!"

Hermione sat bolt upright, all thoughts of rest vanished. "What? I'm late?" she said, horrified. "I've got Defense Against the Dark Arts next!"

"Then hurry up. God knows the woman hates waiting. Impatient old bitch."

"Ginny!" Hermione admonished, throwing her black robes around the day-old clothes. "Don't say that about a teacher. Professor Nockford has been great — I mean, at least she teaches, which is more than Umbridge ever did."

"Oh, God, don't remind me," Ginny groaned. "I wish I was there with you when the centaurs carted her away. That must have been hilarious. Don't tell me not to laugh," she added quickly, seeing the reproachful look on Hermione's face, "because she deserved it."

"I wasn't going to," Hermione said, grabbing her wand and shoving it in her bag bursting with schoolbooks. "Come on, or you'll be late, too."

"Already am," Ginny said, lazily following her down the spiral staircase. "I have Potions next; the longer we take, the better."

They parted ways outside the Portrait Hole, Ginny to the dungeons and Hermione down the wide staircases to the third floor. She hitched up the bottom of her robes — they never fit very well; her build was just between sizes and nothing Madame Malkin did could fix it — and sprinted towards the classroom. Ginny was right; Professor Nockford was impatient and had no tolerance for tardiness.

_Oh God, oh God, _Hermione thought, her breathing heavy, _this has got to be the worst week of my life. Late for Potions _and _Defense Against the Dark Arts. I'm just glad we finished with Patronuses and are moving on to hexes —_

Her internal monologue was cut short by a collision. Her bag flew off her shoulder, scattering parchment, quills, and text books. Her wand rolled in the opposite direction, smoking slightly, to rest by the corner of another bag equally empty.

"Fuck!" an irate voice said, somewhere by her feet. "Granger, watch where the hell you're going."

Hermione sat up, rubbing her forehead, and cursing her luck. She had kept their previous encounter to herself, had prayed that no others had witnessed it. After a week of unremarkable happenings — if a week could ever be described as unremarkable at Hogwarts — she had slowly relaxed. It seemed as if Malfoy looked at her slightly warily the first couple days, but the new trait had quickly been overshadowed by his ever-present disdain and sarcasm. At least he never mentioned it again, and she, taking his cue, responded to his jeers with the same indifference she had always applied.

"Then move out of my way next time, Malfoy," she sighed, crawling to retrieve her things. When they were stuffed haphazardly in her bag, she turned to look tiredly up at Malfoy. He had remained standing — it would have been very hard to knock him over as she only came up to his shoulder — but was examining a small hole in the sleeve of his robe. "It's just a burn. Easily fixed."

His face didn't show it, but the wand had caught his flesh, too, sketching a reddened blister across his forearm. He said nothing, busy disguising the pain. He gingerly squatted down and, with a swish of his wand, gathered his books. He saw her wand still resting by the corner of his bag, and Hermione's hand absently placed on top of it. Her gaze was momentarily distracted by the opening of the classroom door.

His mind, though insisting his eyes turn in the direction of Hermione's, found his body no longer obeyed him. His eyes remained adamantly focused on the chewed nails in front of him, noticing the ink specks on each tip. His hand crept forward, following an impulse that was not his own, fingertips itching to clean her hands. Her filthy hands, filled with Muggle blood. Fear filled him.

Hermione, looking guiltily up at the forbidding figure of Professor Nockford, wrenched her gaze away when she felt a slight touch on her hand. Malfoy bent over it, his long fingers gently tracing the curves of her thin fingers. His pale hand crawled upwards to rest on the smooth back of her hand, thumb drawing wide circles on the sensitive knuckles. He seemed the image of innocent concentration; only a slight twitch at his temple revealed the battle of wills inside him.

Involuntarily, she shuddered. The wand under her sweaty palm responded with a loud _crack, _throwing Malfoy bodily backwards, his head landing hollowly on the hard hall floor.

"Mr. Malfoy! Miss Granger!" Professor Nockford barked. Her beady eyes leapt with the flames of impatience and anger. "In class, immediately."

Hermione meekly complied, a little breathless from a mixture of mortification and inner glee at Malfoy's humiliation. She heard the sounds of Malfoy's frightened pleas of reason and Nockford's strict lecture. Then, silence filled the echoing hall.

Nockford returned, wiry hand firm around Malfoy's elbow. "I want to see both of you after class," she said, thrusting them up the aisle. Pink-faced, Hermione quietly took her seat with Ron and Harry, meeting Malfoy's shocked glare only briefly.

"What happened?" Harry whispered into her ears.

"I bumped into him in the hall. Things got nasty," she said. Noticing their heated gaze directed towards the Slytherin end of the room, she added, "I took care of it. It's all settled."

Professor Nockford rapped the front table with her abnormally long wand, sunken eyes taking in every slight motion of each member of the class. Her long hooked nose, complete with a very large wart on its tip, sniffed irritably. She was a practical witch — she had to be, being half-hag made for a hard childhood — and had little patience for pettiness.

"You all did very well with your Patronuses last week," she began. The praise rolled unnaturally off her lips. "Many of you created a full Patronus — some more easily than others," she said, her eyes picking out those that had been part of the D.A. group the previous year, "though I must remind you that the production of these guardians is extremely difficult when under the stress of a Dementor's presence. My original thought was to try each of you against an imitation Dementor; Mr. Potter had suggested a Boggart. However, there seems to be an unnerving lack of Boggarts at this present time, so we will instead be practicing some of the more difficult Jinxes.

"Now, the following Jinxes are meant to be used against true enemies, those whom you wish to _hurt_, not in the little spats that seem so common here. These Jinxes can do extensive harm if cast properly. Yes, Mr. Thomas?"

"Are they Dark?" Dean asked hopefully.

Professor Nockford stared at him, amused. "Would I still be standing here if I taught Dark Jinxes?" she asked drily. "No, Mr. Thomas, I'm afraid these are not Dark, but in the grey area. Still acceptable — barely.

"All the same, these are extremely important for defense. These are not difficult to block, so must therefore be only used in the most life-threatening situations. Sent with enough force, these Jinxes can put anyone in the hospital for months." She paused. "If I find anyone with the symptoms of having one of these Jinxes cast on them, both the victim and the offender will be sorely punished. Understand?"

The class murmured their assent.

"Good. Now, watch carefully." She flicked her wand, quickly creating a dummy from the vase on her desk. With another flick, it began to breathe. It was not conscious, but could accurately convey the reactions felt by any sensory actions. "The first of these four Jinxes was designed to create an artificial blindness that lasts either until the counter-curse is cast or until it wears off, which can be anywhere from ten minutes to ten years. _Occadio!_" The mannequin tossed its head wildly, and took a couple of hesitating steps towards Nockford.

"When the enemy is in this state of blindness, you can get away with just about anything. The following three curses are all very painful, though none of them borders on the level created by an Unforgivable Curse. First, there is the suffering: _Dolcius!_" The dummy dropped to its knees, mechanical limbs wrapping around its midriff. "Then, the tearing: _Dilanio!_" It fell back, legs rising and separating into the air. Slowly, they began to pull apart, as if an invisible pair of hands was trying to rip it apart. "And finally, the cutting: _Venius!_" The mannequin howled, an eerie scream that caused Neville Longbottom to cower into his arms. It frantically scrabbled at its heart, as if trying to stop an invisible tide of blood.

Professor Nockford watched impassively, before finally waving the dummy back into the original vase. "That last one is particularly nasty," she said. "It literally cuts every vein in the body." The class winced collectively. "I'm surprised that the Ministry of Magic hasn't outlawed them, to be honest, but I assume that they were helpful in the war. Allowed captives to be hurt, not killed. There are even rumors that these Jinxes are still used today in torture."

Hermione's hand shot into the air. "I've read that torture has been outlawed in most magical communities, including Great Britain," she said. "I highly doubt that the Ministry of Magic currently commits such a horrible practice."

"So did I, Miss Granger, until I found otherwise," Professor Nockford whispered. She was silent for a moment. "Right. Pair up," she said, voice restored to its earlier vigor. "I'll come around the room to cast shields on each one of you. I don't want any injuries."

Soon, the class was filled with flashes of green, purple, orange, and crimson light. Hermione, paired with Neville, quickly mastered the spells and sent them lazily across to Neville and spasmodic intervals. However, though she found the mechanics simple, her aim was less than desirable. Once, she sent the Cutting Jinx towards Neville only to see it narrowly miss his ear and fly towards Nockford. Hermione clapped her hands to her mouth in horror, watching her expulsion flash right before her eyes, before Parvati tripped and interrupted its path with her shield. She was more careful after that.

She wasn't surprised to see that Malfoy was as equally bored with the lesson; he Jinxed Crabbe every few seconds and hit him perfectly every time. Whether it was from prior experience or natural ability, however, Hermione couldn't tell. He only looked at her once, face revealing nothing, but she imagined he must be feeling a similar dread for their swiftly approaching conference. Whatever assumptions Nockford made, they would be far from the truth.

When the bell rang, dismissing Gryffindors and Slytherins to their second class, Hermione and Malfoy stood before Professor Nockford's desk. She assessed them over her long nose, eyes gliding between them. Finally, she leaned back and crossed her arms, saying, "Explain."

"Well, Professor," Hermione started, breaking Malfoy's resentful silence, "I overslept this morning and was running to get to class on time, when I collided with Malfoy. Our stuff flew everywhere, and as we gathered it — now _both _of us late for class—"

"Thanks for that, by the way," Malfoy interjected.

"— no problem — we exchanged some...words. I assume that's what brought you outside."

"Partly." She pursed her lips. "What I saw, however, was not two students 'exchanging words.'" She looked between the two. Neither of them answered her, but remained stolidly unaware of the other. She sighed, tiredly rubbing her temples, and bluntly put it out into the open, "I refuse to pardon the two of you for being late for highly personal reasons. It is my understanding that all romantic interactions are to be kept —"

"Romantic?" Malfoy exploded. "That wasn't bloody romantic —"

Hermione, at the same time, interrupted with, "Professor. Malfoy and I have been nothing but enemies from the day we met — ask any teacher; they'll agree —"

"— it was accidental. I don't care what you think, but that wasn't me who did that! It was something...someone else," he finished lamely.

Nockford leaned forward. "It wasn't you?" she asked, frowning. "I thought as much. Tell me, has anything else of this nature happened before?"

The two exchanged glances.

"Well, yes," Hermione said slowly, "only it was me. In Potions, about a week ago, the same thing happened with my hand, over..over his." She looked at Malfoy's pale hand, hanging limply by his side, disdainfully.

Nockford stared past them thoughtfully. "I'll look into it," she said. "You are dismissed." She turned to the tall stack of papers lying on the desk.

Hermione gaped at her. "Th-that's it? No deduction of House points? No detention?"

Malfoy, buoyant by the unexpected understanding, sauntered towards the door. "Count your blessings, Granger. Don't make it worse for yourself."

Professor Nockford looked at her sternly. "You are dismissed, Miss Granger. Oh, but Mr. Malfoy —" he stopped at the door "— please tell me if anything of the sort happens again." He nodded curtly and disappeared. "The same thing goes for you, Miss Granger." She glanced up at the girl, standing lost in thought in front of her desk. She smiled at her, a tender and gentle expression that was oddly natural on her face. The blemishes and ugliness of her hag heritage slipped away. "Miss Granger, feel free to come to me at any time, no matter the cause. But now, I must ask you to leave."

"Yes, ma'am," she said, suddenly light with the honor of this invitation. "Thank you." She slowly followed Malfoy's path out the door.

Just outside, she felt a strong arm push her against the cold wall.

"We won't have to worry about this happening again, will we, Granger?" Malfoy hissed in her ear. She struggled against his choking hold, but found his body impossible to move. She stared up at his dangerous eyes. "Because, Granger, you're not going to come near me for a very, very long time."

He pushed her to the ground and strode off without a backwards glance.

It was then that Hermione knew that Draco Malfoy was scared shitless.

* * *

Lucius Malfoy turned to the wall, knife in hand, his eyes scanning the flesh a flaw, any defect. When they alighted on a thin scab to the right of the Wound, he smiled and approached it. 

"It looks as if we are not the first," he told Wormtail, examining it with the tip of the dagger. His eyes skimmed the flood of blood, and with a hiss, followed his hand downwards as it clutched at a hilt imbedded in the throbbing wall. A skeletal hand remained tight about the rusted blade. "He was not successful. But we will be."

And, slowly, he raised his knife-hand to the wall.

Hermione, floating behind him, saw what he was about to do and tried to scream, but felt only the blood rush across her tongue. She squinted her eyes shut, but even then, she could still Hear.

The throbbing stuttered and gasped with slicing pain as the wall of the Heart split.

* * *

**A/N**: You like? Didn't like? Drop me a review and let me know...I will update again next Friday. (Finally got into the rhythm...I'll be updating every Friday, I think. Except for this week. I got a premonition that it wouldn't happen, so I decided to give you an early treat!) 

Right. On to thank-you's:

Ally: Hello, dearie. Glad you like the Potions scene...it was remarkably hard to write, simple as it was. Hmph. Sometime these things can be a pain...this one was hard, too, really. But fun. Well, they're all fun. I haven't seen you around for awhile, dear! Hope everything's okay...I'm still waiting impatiently for that update. (Glares pointedly at you. Yeah, you.) Hehe, I love you. I do. And, just for you, another scene where they lose control! That'll be the next FEW scenes actually. All escalating. FUN!

Lorett: Darling! Hiya. So glad when I got your review. It was really, really helpful, too. D'ya think the blurb helped at all? I'm interested to see whether this chapter was a little clearer. I want to be cryptic, but not TOO cryptic. Sometimes, really complicated stories can just drag on and on and on and on...I definitely don't want this one to become one like that. Ooh, I'm really excited about some of the upcoming scenes though! Not that I can tell you, but I just wanted to share. Tehehe. Hope that the next update of Keys isn't TOO long in coming. Hem hem. Love you much! I do!

Taintless: Help at all, dear? Like I told Lorett, I want to be cryptic, but not so much you can't guess a little here and there. Let me know if it becomes too heavy...I always want to hear suggestions! (Compliments are nice, too, though. Hm...you're really good at giving those! Aw, I love you. And them. But most of all you.) Hope to hear from you real soon, girlie. Talk to you later, darling!

Slythswn: I'm so glad you got what was going on! You were one of the few. Ah, hope this chapter pleases. And as for the Sensing thing...that'll come soon. It plays a REALLY big part in the story, but it probably won't be explained more than what I did last chappie. You think it's enough? I mean, you'll get more acquainted with it when it really comes into play...and the content of the BOOK, of course, will be delved into. It'll be explained a little bit more, I guess, but only cryptically. Right. So luv ya! To pieces!

Everyone else who's reading and not reviewing: Thanks for stopping by. There's still a little button down there though, who's begging for some attention.

Kisses to everyone!

Alison


	7. Fool

**Disclaimer**: Not mine. Never will be.

**A/N**: Whew. So so so so so so sorry about the delay. It was all set to go (the chapter itself, anyways), and I was in the middle of writing Shout-Outs on Friday, but some school conflict came up. This is the first free time I've had since then. Unfortunately, the next chapter, fun as it should be to write, is going to be a bit later in coming. Spring Break! Woot woot! I'll write the next two (with luck) and post as soon as I come back. There will just be a week and a half pause (possibly two) in there. Please forgive me! Right, without further ado (and there's been A LOT of it), please welcome Chapter 7!

* * *

_**Last Time** — _

"We won't have to worry about this happening again, will we, Granger?" Malfoy hissed in her ear. She struggled against his choking hold, but found his body impossible to move. She stared up at his dangerous eyes. "Because, Granger, you're not going to come near me for a very, very long time."

He pushed her to the ground and strode off without a backwards glance.

It was then that Hermione knew that Draco Malfoy was scared shitless.

* * *

_Chapter 7 - Fool_

Snake watched her approach. The golden orb of the firelight remained steady behind her, but the shadows below her writhed around her swollen legs. The dry twigs above her scratched and whistled, the sound rising above her labored breathing. The moon, mother of her threads, whispered a warning that dripped past deadened ears.

She stopped only once, her back bent with the heavy burden, to whip with braided starlight the skeletal hands that encircled her ankle.

She waded through the dangers, the temptations of the night easily; but then, she was of the night herself — creator and master. She paid little thought to the greater risk watching her through the flames; her sisters' slitted eyes would only brood, never act.

They knew of her betrayal. But then, they knew she was born was born to betray.

* * *

She told herself it was because she didn't want another encounter. She told herself it was because of his warning. She told herself it was because she wanted to forget. She ignored the fact that it was doing the opposite. 

Hermione Granger was avoiding Draco Malfoy.

The true reason was none of these. If she ever really wanted to know, it was there, right beneath the thin layer of doubts lining her memory. She just had to dig a little deeper, open her mind to the possibility of humiliation — to admit is to humiliate; pride decrees it so. If she wanted to be perfectly honest with her conscience, she was avoiding him simply because of secret terror.

No one could truly know the horror of being a slave to another's will, to have no control over your actions. Worst of all, however, was the consciousness, the wakefulness and observance of one's body as another being puppeted it. Though the grip of the strange master would fade and one would be restored, no one could erase the memory of the deeds performed when under its influence. Hermione suddenly found herself sympathizing for the drunks and drug addicts that staggered through the streets back home. Addiction was similar, she realized, except that you made an active decision to follow the lead of that substance. She did not remember wishing to be a stranger in her own body.

November passed into December with little commotion. Her and Malfoy's interactions consisted of shortcuts and lowered eyes whenever the other's hair — bushy or pale — was glimpsed above the heads of the crowd. In class, both were careful to take seats that were far apart and involved as little notice of each other as possible.

Outside, threads of frost wove silver patterns in the grass. The grey bark was etched in white, the snow making fragile twigs grow fat and form the delicate lace of winter. Over the grounds, a pale sky waited patiently for clouds to cover it and turn everything green into a glittering sameness.

The Hogwarts students found themselves thrust into expectancy, impatiently locked indoors from the bitter wind and having nothing to look forward to except the holidays. Everywhere, holly and evergreen branches began to sprout of stone corners. Teachers whispered in crowded hallways, close-lipped smiles doing nothing to soften the burden of homework they lay so heavily on their students' shoulders.

Work for Hermione had never been a problem. She knew how to manage her time well, and she usually understood the lessons the first time they were taught, if not before. Sense was not forgotten; her fascination and frustration only seemed to increase as she grew tired of the cold walls. When her time was empty of any distraction, she pored over the cover, still looking for a weakness.

One night, when the dark pressed in through the windows of the Gryffindor Common Room, she bent tired eyes to the blue cover. Her concentration slipped, lingering instead on the form of Crookshanks stalking Neville's toad Trevor. Each time she pulled her focus back to what lay on her lap, her frustration mounted.

"I've _had _it!" she finally screamed, slamming the book to the floor. The dull noise reverberated around the Common Room.

A pen dropped. All eyes stared at the nosy, uptight Prefect with a mixture of curiosity and annoyance.

"Er, had what, Hermione?" Harry asked, breaking the silence.

"Had it up to_ here_," she said, gesturing ear-level. "I'm through with it. I'm done."

Disappointed, the Common Room turned back to their conversations, soft murmurs slowly bouncing off the high ceiling.

"Right. Good idea," Ron said absently. "Oy, Harry. Explain how to Mirage again, would you? I can only listen to one Flitwick at once, and completely missed the point of the lesson when all four of them started arguing." He rubbed his ear ruefully.

Hermione tuned out, debating her choices. The obvious thing was to do was to return it, but the problem of finding the Dark alcove again remained. Her preference, of course, was to actually open it, but there was no one who she could trust to show her. Madame Pince, the librarian, was out of the question; she would think she stole the book. Professor Nockford would ask too many questions and probably confiscate it — that ruled out all the teachers, as a matter of fact. Ginny only knew she had the book; she had no ideas of how to find that section if she wasn't there in the first place. And any other Gryffindor probably already knew what Sensing was, and would refuse to even come near the book.

If she really wanted this, she had only one option. There was one other who knew she had it. And that person was expert in Dark Arts — whether he could perform them or not was in question, but he had knowledge and enough intuition to possibly solve the book's mystery.

* * *

Hermione squared her shoulders as the bell rang, eyes on the pale head in front of her. She didn't hear Professor Vector dismiss them, her thoughts instead living the imminent conversation long before her mouth would speak the words. It took her a moment, then, to realize he had already left. 

"Malfoy!" she called, books in hand, eyes on his swiftly moving back.

Malfoy turned and saw the small girl shove her way through the crowd. "Shit," he breathed, eyes scanning the mass of black-robed students. "Doesn't she know how to stay the hell away?" He spotted a gap between two groups of chattering Third Year girls, and dove through.

Hermione reached out and grabbed the corner of his flapping cloak, finding herself stumbling behind Malfoy as he tried to lose her. "Malfoy!" she gasped. "Stop! It's fast, I promise."

He skidded to a halt, and in one swift motion, grabbed her elbow and threw her against the wall. She masked the wince that threatened to break onto her features.

"Make it quick," he snarled.

She smoothed her robe with shaking hands, brown eyes fixed determinedly on the furious grey ones in front of her. "It's about Sense," she said, her voice clear. "I can't open it."

Malfoy relaxed a little. "Ah, the book you stole from the library," he said, remembering.

"I didn't _steal _it," Hermione objected. "It brought itself with me. It wasn't my choice to take any one of those books."

"Of course not," he said sarcastically.

"It's true. When I was following you out—"

"So you _were _following me!"

"—only to get out of there — it fell in front of me. And wouldn't let me leave without it." She stared back at him, daring him to disbelieve her. Instead, she was surprised to see him lean forward, eyes wide.

"It...it _chose_ you? A Dark text chose Hermione Granger, of all people?" he whispered. He let out a forced laugh that didn't quite veil the awe in his voice. "My God. That changes things."

"How?"

Malfoy didn't answer. He took another step forward until he leaned directly over her. His body felt her heat, smelled the musk of fear — was the smell hers or his? — and heard himself speak again.

"That changes things quite a lot."

Hermione didn't like the look in his eyes. They were dead, lids pinned to his skull, and seemed to suck her life, her stuff of thought and dream, out of her until she was left gasping and strengthless. He placed his hands on either side of her head — slowly, as if he were unused to the simple motion — and gently leaned his weight on them, taut body pressing deep into hers.

"Malfoy, what are you doing? Malfoy. Malfoy? Malfoy!" Hermione pleaded. Her hands scratched and pushed at his chest, hips shoving against his in order to make space.

She froze as he felt a finger slide down her face, stroking her jaw tenderly. She felt the impulse to shiver, to relax her neck and melt herself into the sensation, but firmly denied them. She fought only by resistance, no strength left to battle him physically. _Oh God, Malfoy_, she thought desperately. _Why don't you stop it? Why isn't it stopping?_

Though he seemed displaced, unanswering, Malfoy was fighting for his consciousness deep inside the darkness of his mind. He bit and scratched and strangled the will that bound his body, but its word was absolute. Nothing could break it.

His senses were on fire, reveling in the contact. His body rejoiced in the desperate touch, pressing in only more deeply to increase the intensity. His chest ground into her, his hips locked hers to the wall. Every bit of space between them had to filled. He had to feel her skin, tame the power in the girl that resisted him so violently. His body desired her in that moment.

And just as suddenly as It appeared, the will vanished.

Malfoy fell limp on her shoulder, the whites of his eyes gleaming through the crack of his eyelids. Hermione shoved his weight off her with a grunt, letting him fall tangled to the floor. She knelt by his body, slapping his face gently in order to revive him. Beyond him, the students swirled blindly by, noticing nothing.

His body made a violent jerk, the spasm extending to the tips of his fingers. His eyes sprang open, silver irises glowing, and he jumped immediately to his feet. Hermione wondered what force in his life had taught him to spring out of sleep so suddenly and completely, crouched in readiness.

She stood slowly, watching his face. She watched the expression turn from blind anticipation to suspicion, then fall in horror as the memories returned. He stood straight then, eyes averted from hers, and ran agitated fingers through his hair.

"Fuck," he swore. He began to pace in front of her, the sharp turns at the end of each short length emphasized with another curse.

"Listen, Malfoy," she said, hiding her similar distress, "it's fine, really. We both know it wasn't you."

He stopped quickly, eyes meeting hers. The look in them was desperate, terrifying. He laughed quietly, despairingly. "Fine?" he echoed. He shook his head slowly. "No, Granger, it's not _fine._ How can it be 'fine' if at any moment I could hurt you, myself? Under another's control, I could murder." He looked down at his empty hands and clenched them.

"I'm sorry," she said, reaching out to still his shaking arms. "That's not what I meant—"

"Don't touch me!" he shouted, ripping his arm away from her gentle touch and stumbling backwards.

"Fine," Hermione said, temper rising. "_Fine._ I won't help you then. Maybe we could have worked together, and learned how to fight It, but I can tell it would have been a mistake. Just do me a favor, Malfoy, and don't come near me."

She gathered her books from the ground and stalked off, ignoring the juvenile remark he threw at her back: "That's not a favor, Granger; that's common sense! Who'd want to look at your ugly face anyways?" She didn't look back, didn't see him collapse against the wall, eyes closed and cheeks flushed. His jaw was set, his fists grinding into the stone behind him.

In the Gryffindor common room, she was alone. All other students were in their second class of the day — she should have been in Advanced Transfiguration — but now, she could barely tolerate her own company. With a cry, she threw her books onto a table. She kicked over the high-backed chairs, shoved any furniture in her reach as far as she could. Torches fell to the floor, magical flame illuminating the worn carpet; pictures shuddered on the thick walls. In her rage, she noticed none of this, watching only her small hands clench and fall back, tighten and then relax. She had no recollection of falling into the last chair, alone in the center of the circular room, and sobbing into the crook of her arm.

The only thing she heard was the chant of "Fool! Fool! Fucking fool!" echoing in her head.

* * *

Harry and Ron found her there after lunch: a solitary figure bent in exhausted contortions in the lap of a faded armchair. Her head rested on her arm, face red, eyes ringed, hair tangled erect. They restored the room silently as not to disturb her quiet sleep, erasing all evidence of the rage that stormed the room. They did not know what drover her practical mind to madness — they knew they probably never would — but they accepted it and cared for her in any way the could. 

When she swam out of the darkness, erupting into the free air, she saw her two friends quietly whispering to the rhythm of scratching quills. She said nothing, simply resting in the warm comfort of their presence: one explosive and irrational, the other solid and proud. One red, one black. Both unwavering in their loyalty. Both lacking in subtlety.

Ron looked up as she sighed softly, grin breaking over his freckled features. "You're awake!" he observed. "Good. Now you can tell us what happened."

Harry shot him a look. "We were getting worried when you didn't show up for class. You okay?"

She yawned. "I'll be fine. I was just upset.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Upset?"

"So I lost control."

"You lost control," Ron said, beginning to laugh. "I've never heard such an understateme—ouch! What the hell was that for?" he asked, looking indignantly at Harry and rubbing his ankle.

"Yes, Ron, I did," Hermione sighed. "And if you're not careful, next time I'll take it out on you, not the furniture." Ron stopped laughing. "So what did I miss in class?"

"Nothing at all," Harry said. "Boring as hell."

"As usual," Ron added, ignoring Hermione's reproving look. "Except for the announcement, of course."

"The announcement?" she repeated, looking between them.

Harry began to laugh. "Oh yeah. Forgot about that."

"Forgot about _what?_" she asked.

"Oy, Harry!" Ginny called across the Common Room, waving a piece of paper. "You hear about the Masquerade?"

"A-a what?" Hermione asked, stiffening with alarm. "Oh God. Not _another_ dance."

That promptly shut up both Ron and Harry. "It's only our second one!" Ron said. "Bill said he had about one every year when he was in school. Oy, Gin! Bring that announcement over here."

Ginny handed the flyer to Hermione.

**MASQUERADE**

Face, smiles, tongues set in stone  
eyes meet eyes, hand meets hand  
in celebration   
in ecstacy of the mask.  
-Eloise McHaggle, 1416-1474   
_Christmas Eve, Great Hall  
__Dress Robes Required  
__And Please, Bring No Date  
__(Fourth Years and Up)_

Hermione stared at the message thoughtfully. "No dates allowed?"

"No," Ron scoffed. "Isn't that stupid?

"You think so?" Ginny asked. "After all the trouble you had finding a date two years ago?"

"It's actually quite an interesting concept," Hermione said. She passed the flyer back to Ginny. "I assume it's to establish inter-House unity — you know, the crap the Sorting Hat tells us every year. When we're masked, no one will be tell what House we're from."

"Except by our voices," Harry said.

"No. What do you think the first line was about? 'Faces, smiles, _tongues_ set in stone...' In the Renaissance period, during Carnival, the men traditionally didn't talk. They pointed out their names on a scroll, and if a lady accepted them, then the men were required to do whatever she wished for the evening." Ron choked. "Now with all these ideas of feminism floating around," she continued, "I think we'll all be silenced. Who's organizing this?"

"The teachers, mostly," Harry answered, "and a selected group of Seventh Years. Dunno who though."

"So probably some sort of complex spell over the doorway to the Great Hall."

"Hermione!" Lavender Brown squealed, interrupting. She stood before them, cocky hand placed on her hip. "Have you heard?"

"Yes."

"And you're still sitting here? We've only got sixteen days until Christmas Eve! If you want a good costume, you've got to start _now._ There's the robes to buy, the animal to think of, the fabric to purchase, the make-up...coming, Parvati!" she yelled, and ran off.

Hermione dropped her head into her hands. "I hate dances," she groaned.

* * *

Slowly, delicately, Lucius Malfoy thrust the knife into the wall and pulled downwards. He did it twice more, deaf to the echoing cry of pain that drummed through the flesh. He smiled grimly at the arch, blood oozing out of the edges and trickling downwards to join the flood at his feet. 

"Wormtail. The spell," he said, hand waiting for the parchment.

Trembling, the man reached into his robes and drew forth a yellowed paper. Grey words, dead words, bled onto its surface to form an incantation. He numbly handed it over, fearful eyes on the arch.

Lucius Malfoy drew his wand, pressing his weight through his arm to deepen the arch. As he traced the gate with the sharp tip of his wand, he spoke the deadly words:

_Viscus Consensco._

Scarlet light burst through the edges, blinding both of them. When their eyes regained their sight, the flesh had crumbled to grey dust at their feet, leaving an opening into emptiness. With a cry of triumph, Malfoy ran through, Wormtail scampering behind him. And always following, Hermione.

No one noticed the black words scrawled over the archway:

No Return.

* * *

**A/N**: Whew! Yay! Onwards! The translation of the incantation is, according to my crappy Latin dictionary, "the Heart decays." The word "decay" can be replaced with "grows old," a convenient reference to time. (I hope none of you guys are Latin majors out there...I only do French. Badly at that. So I know I didn't conjugate the verb. Just pretend it's right. Please? Pretty please?) Speaking of time, it becomes very important to this third little plot...keep that in mind. It will come into play a few chapters from now. 

On a side note, I wrote a fairly long response to some questions **Lorett **(first shout out) posed, and I bet ANYTHING there are more of you out there wondering some of the same things. So, if you feel confused (and want a couple of previews), just take a quick peek down at Lorett's shout out. My version of an explanation often doesn't cut it with most folks. This may be the most blunt you'll ever see in Puppet Master. Of course, there IS a chapter coming up in about two or three updates which will explain a lot of this. And more! The next update might take ten days or so...I'm on Spring Break as of today, and am visiting my Grandad in New Mexico. Hopefully I'll have the chance to update while I'm there...or at least finish chapter 8!

Okay, lots of thank-you's today (I feel so loved!):

**Lorett**: Darling! Hope this chapter didn't disappoint. Thanks so much for the encouragement. Tehehehe...it made me smile. I just felt that I wanted to make their last encounter a bit more ... interesting. And it will be nice to put a stopper in the foreshadowing for a little while. Okay, now for your questions. As you know, I can't give the whole plot away, but maybe I can help a little. #1: Yes, not quite, and yes. Age_ is_ crouched over the form of our Headmaster, sort of another clue to why his twinkle is dimming. She's making him weak (partly in judgement), not quite senile, and is definitely shortening his life span. That doesn't mean he's going to die, but it does have interesting consequences on Hogwarts. (Explains why he's so gloomy, too, with that veil over his perspective and judgement. Not quite up to making the best choices.) #2: Ah, I'm glad you see it now. I sort of originally wanted to lead up to the whole "It's not me, it's someone else" thing, but this story is confusing enough. I have four encounters planned, each important to the story (this is number three). I'll try not to make it too redundant. And of course Draco and Hermione are going to fall for each other! Wouldn't be a romance if they didn't, right? That'll start a few chapters from now; there are a couple utility events in the way first. And as for Nockfred...let's just say that she's informed. No, not by the masterminds of this whole plan, but she IS an educated woman. Not a D.A. prof for nothing. Plus, don't forget she's a hag. Also, Hermione "just getting nervous" didn't really shoot Malfoy across the floor. She shuddered, and the wand under her hand responded to the motion. Wands do funny things, responding a lot on what one is feeling at the moment. Unfortunately, Hermione doesn't have any weird powers, brilliant as she is. #3: Yup, you were almost right about Time. Time is actually the blood in the veins, the Heart surrounding it is the vital organ which channels it. Now that they've made the gate, they're obviously going to pass away from the Heart and Time, and move onto bigger things. (Can't tell you where that'll be though. Hah hah! Gotta wait and find out for yourself.) And as for how Lucius/Wormtail/Hermione got there...I kind of didn't mention it. It's pretty simple: they just followed the flow of the blood until they found the place where no light shines, or the Heart. Working backwards through time. Sensing allows you to see the mechanics of the world (you know, how the world and life function) if you remember, and only those who can Sense can follow the blood. I'll actually describe the journey they took later on (waaayyy later on), but I hope that helped. And as for how she's seeing these happenings, I think I included a line in one of the early chapters...hold on...ah, here it is (Chap 2): "The beating was steady, barely audible to the human ear. It required Hearing, just as the coursing blood required Seeing, listening past the surface noises for the mother of life, humanity. Any could Hear, but the knowledge of existence was necessary. The knowledge could be gained from one who has Heard or Seen or Tasted or Touched or Smelled, but the clearest road to discovery was through Dream." What that means, basically, is that you can only Sense if you learn from someone who has already experienced the power of Sensing, but as I've sort of hinted at before, Hermione has an uncanny knack for it. Sort of a natural ability. Or here's another way to put it: it's sort of a vision that she sees only when she sleeps. So the events that happen as she Dreams are going on IN THAT EXACT MOMENT. Remember, Lucius and Wormtail are standing in Time, which must be a different time pattern. The time flow there is much slower than it is at Hogwarts. Basically. Help at all? Hope so. The response took me foreverrrrrr, but I love you so much I thought it was necessary. Plus, that way I can match the one you left me two updates ago! Love you, darling.

**Ally**: Hiya, love. Watcha think? This was actually a fairly fun chapter to right, but you know my "secret" struggle over whether to post it or not. Hopefully I can carry the next chapter off...Argh! SO HARD! Our darling Draco and Hermione only have one more encounter left (I hope it's not getting TOO redundant). But I thought their fear had to be a bit more exposed before they could do anything about it. This was sort of another utility chapter. Joy. Ah, sigh. I'm so glad you also like the first scenes. I think I've told you before that the Fates scenes are the most fun to write. They're the ones that come the most naturally to me. If I could, I would write the entire story like that. However, it would just bit a wee bit confusing, full of way to many metaphors and personifications. Sigh. Just have to content myself with the small versions. Ah, and as for why this is happening...it will all be explained. A bit obscure, so I'm confident that you won't COMPLETELY guess it. I just hope I can explain it to all of you so it won't confuse you _too _much. Seem to do that a lot. Anywho, I do so hope that the muses get unstuck, my dear. I am SO looking forward to the next chapter in A Reason. Whee!

**Mrs-Accio-Firebolt**: Hiya, love! You're HERE! Yay! I had though I'd lost you as a reviewer. Actually, I was trying to find you again when your review popped up, though I couldn't figure out a polite way to say: Hi. I admire your reviews. Give me one. NOW! But anyways, you're here. That's the important part. Now to respond: Thanks so much for your honesty. I want to make sure you know how much it's appreciated. It makes me think, and improve. Yeah, I know. Crazy, huh? IMPROVING? But it does. I was actually surprised that no one had mentioned how bipolar Hermione seemed in the first chapter. In the early chapters (the first two or three), I was still figuring out my plot and how she was going to fit into it. And because of that, I couldn't really decide on how I was going to present her. Now, I hope that she's settled down a bit (hah, though she did lose control in this chapter...so let's say settled down meaning not "over-funny"). And in the future, I'll keep even more of an eye on that aspect of my writing. It's amazingly hard to write reactions...ever noticed that? You know what _you'd_ do, but you've never really experienced those exact situations. I think my problem is that I take each situation separately from the others, not making any bridges between them. I'll work harder on that, to keep an eye on what they have already been through. I'm so glad you liked my Ron! He's such a caricature, and fun to write. And as for your query about how he's so light when Dumbledore's so dark...observation has never been one of his strong points. He probably just thinks, Hey, the Headmaster is having a bad day. That's it. End of story. He's self-centered, in an adorable way, you know what I mean? As for your Dreaming question, you might want to take a look at my VERY long response to our Lorett. Explains a bit more what's going on in the Dream sequences. And as you said, they do seem incomplete. They're supposed to. One long journey that is in a different time pattern than the rest. It's like a separate story, with the beginning at the beginning of beginning of Puppet Master, the climax matching the climax of the main plot. Next, Hermione's mum's death: Like I said, I didn't have an outline when I wrote it, so it sort of faded into the background a bit. It _is _going to come back into play later on, and is going to be a big factor when it does make an appearance. I've got a couple things planned with it. I know it faded out really fast, but my interpretation of Hermione is that she is so well-organized and so intelligent and so passionate, she doesn't really allow herself to feel things that directly relate to her. She doesn't ever face her fears head on...not physical fears. Emotional fears. If you notice, she never confronts Ron or Harry when they do something really stupid and heartless, she flows with the tide. All this avoidance, however, is taken out on other things, making her really brave in the face of danger. She will do anything to kill Voldemort who is responsible for her mother's death, but she won't think about the fact that her mother is never going to come back. That sort of thing. I don't think I really explained that well, but _I _know what I mean. I'll think of a better way to convey that and get back to you...hm...Anywho, thanks so much much much! (I too love the Fate scenes...probably my favorite portion to write...) I love you, darling! Talk to you soon!

**Callista**: Hello! Welcome aboard! My face is all red from reading your review for about the MILLIONTH time. I just look at it and think, "Wow! Somebody loves me!" and feel warm and tingly. Aw, thanks a bunch, babe. I'm so glad your day of studying was lightened. I know exactly how terrible they can be. Grr. School should die. Or at least the work part. But anyways, thanks so much for the comment on my originality. I was hoping against hope that to some it would seem not two dimensional and copied, and I felt so wonderful when I read that you felt that way. You made my day. Really. You did. Love you! Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this chpater.

**MisEnchantment**: Hiya, love! So glad to hear from you! I was so thrilled when I got your comments. I was really, really, really touched. I was. What you (and Callista) said to me was about the best an author can get. Thank you so much for that. Sorry about the grammatical errors, by the way. When I write, I'm so excited to get the words down I'm not very careful to make sure they make total grammatical sense. And when I go back through and edit them, my eyes miss over some of the more obvious ones. I know exactly what I'm trying to say, so I automatically assume that it's what it says. Sigh. So difficult. I'll try to do better though. I really should print out the chapter, but it takes me so long to write and update, there'd be a month between each update instead. (Thanks for the reading suggestion, by the way. I plan on reading it right after I post!) Can't wait to see what you think!

**Foamy**: Hey! You came back! Thrilling! Absolutely positively thrilling. So, you think you know what's going on, do you? Hmph. Maybe you write TOO much like me. Who knows, maybe you're inside my head right now, and laughing at me because you know exactly what's going to happen. NO YOU DON'T! I WILL CHANGE IT SO YOU DON'T KNOW WHICH WAY IS UP AND WHICH IS DOWN! HAH! TAKE THAT! No, then I'd be bombarded with angry reviews. I suppose you'll just have to be right...sigh. So, when are you going to update, m'love? I'm waiting over here. Impatiently, I might add. Just as impatiently as I'm waiting to hear your thoughts on this chap.

**Slyswn**: Little lady? LITTLE LADY? Hmph. I resent the truth in that statement. I AM THE AUTHOR...I AM BIGGER THAN YOU! Bwahahahaha! Okay, spaz over. Glad you liked the last chap. Hope this one is just as good in your eyes. The next one should be fun, too...Love you, dearie!

Fingers Flying (to Update Faster this Time),  
Alison 


	8. Stone Tongues

**Disclaimer:** Still borrowing J.K. Rowling's wonderful characters. Still not making any money. Sigh. Life can be so unfair!

**A/N:** Long time, no update, eh? Sorry about that, but I was in New Mexico for Spring Break and had little access to a computer, so I wrote this chapter by hand, and just typed it up last night. At least it's done, right?

Okay. I have to clear up something, the whole purpose for this Author's Note at the BEGINNING of the chapter. A couple of people (**MisEnchantment **- where are you by the way, love? I missed your review this last chapter - and especially **MrsAccioFirebolt**) notified me of the existence of some typos and grammatical mistakes. I want to apologize for that. I condemn stories that have those – I lose a lot of respect for authors' stories that contain them – and here I am doing it myself. I feel like such a hypocrite. My best excuse (it's true, too) is that I've taken to writing out the chapter first by hand, and make most of my corrections on the paper (I swear the grammar is close to perfect there), but when I type I do less of a thorough job in my editing. So, I'm going to change that. I printed out the entire story (all forty-something pages of it), and have gone through with a red pen and PAINTED each chapter with squiggles and corrections. I plan on going through and re-posting each chapter. I don't know whether they send out Author Alerts for those, but if they do, feel free to ignore them. Just rest with the knowledge that all those stupid, pesky, disrespectful mistakes have been taken out. Words here and there have been changed, too, but nothing that's changed the course of the story.

In the future, I will be far more careful. I swear. Right. Enough of beating myself up. Onto the text!

* * *

_Last Time:_

**MASQUERADE**

Face, smiles, tongues set in stone  
eyes meet eyes, hand meets hand  
in celebration  
in ecstacy  
of the mask.  
- Eloise McHaggle, 1416-1474  
_Christmas Eve, Great Hall_  
_Dress Robes Required_  
_And Please, Bring No Date_  
_(Fourth Years and Up)__

* * *

_

_Chapter 8 - Stone Tongues_

She waded through the dangers, the temptations of the night easily; but then, she was of the night herself — creator and master. She paid little thought to the greater risk watching her through the flames; her sisters' slitted eyes would only brood, never act.

They knew of her betrayal. But then, they knew she was born was born to betray.

"Lord," she said, smoky words stinging Snake's ears under his hood, "I am discontent." Her eyes glittered, their empty depths whispering pictures: Her place by the fire, once exalted and respected, overgrown and bleeding black displacement. Her chains broken, rusting in her yellowed hands. Her ears deaf to the drums from the thirsty roots of the trees. Her ankles snapped, swollen and sore from dancing; the blood in her veins unable to move her joints to dance with the grace and enchantment she once possessed.

Snake saw this and smiled. "You have passed," he answered. "Turn traitor to your sisters. Become loyal to me, and your place will be restored. You will rise above the lesser Fates, whom you once thought your equals."

"Lord, I stand before you. My presence here, at your feet, swears it. I cannot go back to them." Cruelty bowed, bent back a creaking in a vicious salute to his control. Her lipless mouth contorted in a smile terrifying to behold, but was shielded beneath her veil.

"Good," said Snake, pleased. "I have a task for you."

* * *

Hermione felt a tugging on her hand as she placed her feet on the first step to the girls' dormitories, and turned to find Ron's pleading face in front of her. "No, Ron, I won't tell you what I'm going to be," she said, amused in her exasperation. "And no, I don't want to hear what you're going to be, either. It's against the rules." She gently took her hand from his.

His hopeful smile fell. "Please?" he asked. When he saw her firm headshake, he took a deep breath and pressed on, "How else am I going to save the first dance for you?"

Hermione reddened. She hesitated, face looking up to where her black silk robe waited for her before turning back to the boy, expression disapprovingly flattered. She leaned forward then, mouth by his ear, and whispered, "Look for the raven." She quickly kissed his cheek, and cheeks still flaming, skittered up the stairs. She didn't see him watch her disappear around the corner, blue eyes enraptured.

Fingers and minutes flew: the slender black robes were thrown over her body; her hair battled until it fell under her control and was turned the color of emptiness, of deep shadow, of the raven's feathers. Ginny's skillful fingers teased it up until it curved behind her ears in two graceful wings, supported with feathers and soft incantations.

Ginny, eagle's beak beneath her arm, steered Hermione passed a flamboyant butterfly who was fussing at white-robed Lavender with Parvati's voice. A unicorn's head hung from the corner of a disgruntled mirror, who unwillingly showed Hermione her reflection. She smiled with silver lips, mutely placing her raven's mask over the bridge of her nose. Ginny tied the black ribbons behind her head.

"What do you think?" Ginny asked, briskly smoothing the silky feathers that hung from Hermione's sleeves and collar.

Hermione tilted her head, considering. "This beak is going to get annoying," she said simply, her voice echoing beneath the stiff cardboard, sound traveling to the pointed extension that stretched past her nose. She quite suddenly pivoted and gave Ginny a wordless hug. "It's great," she whispered. "Thank you."

Ginny patted her back awkwardly. "Anything to get Ron off my back," she said, winking. Hermione felt herself blush a second time, and her hands found the silver talon at the base of her throat. Ginny grinned at her reaction, hands occupied as she adjusted her glaringly feathered headdress and mask. "It's not like it wasn't obvious," she said. "He's had a crush on you for years."

"Since Third Year," Hermione whispered. "That's when he figured out that I could do things, that I had the courage. It wasn't just 'the Boys' anymore – it was 'the Boys _and_ Hermione."

"Like I said. For years."

Hermione hastily changed the subject, her romantic realization still too fresh and tender for her to share. "Are you meeting up with Dean there?"

"He told me he was the leopard," Ginny said, shrugging. "And I dropped a hint at Harry. I'm sure Ron would have told him anyways."

Hermione's jaw dropped. "_Harry_? Since when?"

"Since never. But Ron's always throwing us together – we decided we might as well pretend interest in each other if only to force Ron to ask you. Now that he has, we'll probably stop—oh, that was the girls' signal."

The lights flickered once more, the lull swiftly filled by excited laughter and slapping footsteps as girls raced down the spiral stairway to join the masks drifting past the Portrait Hole. Hermione, close behind Ginny as they began the long descent to the Great Hall, felt her heart stop as she saw the ethereal creatures, her unrecognizable fellow students. They poured down the stairs, from all sides as sand slides into an hourglass – swift and at once – eyes glittering in the light of candles. A graceful stick of wax floated near her wrist; she grasped it and felt the heat swell into being. She joined the procession, the masquerade of false reality entering into one night of fantasy.

She looked up; more eyes stared down at her over fangs, beaks, horns. The boys – men for this single night – watched them far above. Flames illuminated only their faces, the rest was lost in shadow. It was no matter, the girls would see the rest soon enough.

Draco Malfoy watched the flood of lights and leering faces flow lightly below him. The boys were silent, gazing upon the spectacle with hidden eyes. A stag, magnificent horns twisting to the dark and unfathomable ceiling, glanced at Draco's black robes briefly. He looked away again, and catching sight of one he presumably knew, gestured a hello into the depths of lowered lashes. Draco leaned over the railing to inspect the figures more closely, and met the eyes of a beautiful black crow.

He smiled smugly under his heavy mask in recognition. Pansy had not wanted to tell him her disguise, but one has little thought for duty when in the throes of pleasure. His lithe fingers were enough to guarantee that admittance. When the chorus of his name echoed in the knots of the damp sheets, it was intertwined with the single word "raven."

"Raven?" he had repeated softly, holding the shivering girl gently in his arms. Her blonde hair twisted around his arm, tying them in the bonds of an infinite embrace. He did not protest at this forever-intimacy; he only felt the grip of the stranger Security.

Pansy nodded, mouth to dry to vocalize any but the most guttural sounds.

"No," he told her, cheek against her temple. "Don't be a raven. Be a crow, a rook. They look almost the same," he assured her, noticing the protest in her blue eyes. "No one will know. Except for me."

"Then why should it matter?" Pansy asked hoarsely, burrowing her face deeper into his strong body.

"It matters to me." He was silent. "The rook is my mother's favorite animal," he whispered into her small ear. "Intelligent and beautiful. She always used to say that if she was an Animagus, she would be a crow. Graceful, poised, but overlooked by so many." He stroked her cheek gently, twisted a sweaty lock of hair between his fingers. "Like her. Like you."

Pansy's fingers crept to his hip and found the small black needle-drawing there. She traced the tiny beak, the beating wings, the eyes that were so knowing in such a fierce body. "Is that why you got the tattoo?" she whispered.

"Yes."

She smiled and kissed his cheek. "I'll be your rook," she promised, and pulled his warm weight over her once more.

The promise rang in his ears now, and the same fingers that evoked such a vow waved in greeting. The black head bowed, and passed on.

When the lights flickered three times, the rustle of the robes had faded below them. A second parade, unobserved, began the march down to the elegant doors of the Great Hall, quiet punctured by a few unechoing murmurs. Draco remained silent, steps carefully placed inside the unmarked footprints of the stag in front of him. They passed through the doors, woodwork faded but unwavering, and rested burning eyes on the transformed hall.

Even Draco, accustomed to magnificence, felt awe's shadow. The enormous fir trees – twelve in all – erupted out of cold water that slipped by on its four-cornered odyssey. The men crossed a graceful bridge, noticed shielded benches overgrown with holly and flickering orbs that shed a silver light. The main platform was long, clear for dancing and lit by the limitless depths of the star field above them. Another several dozen orbs slid past the hundreds of candles in an endless, unfathomable pattern.

And there, at the other end, the women waited restlessly.

The men wandered among them, extending hands to pull them into the music that descended from the otherworldly roof. They did not attempt to identify the other; the full masks relentlessly foiled any attempts of recognition. Draco wove between his peers, eyes locked on those in the hollowed depths of a black mask. His rook, fletched in all her glory, took his hand.

"Dance?" he asked. The sound, however, never made it to his lips. His tongue had grown roots that meshed flesh and instrument together; his vocal chords had stiffened into still existence. Only his breath sounded, sweet but meaningless. _Stone tongues_, he thought, and smiled grimly at the irony.

Pansy pulled him into the center of the dance floor, placing his large hands in the familiar hollows of her body. Her eyes were light with fondness and amusement. Their traveling gaze made it apparent that she found his choice of creature comical. Draco found himself a little offended; he had thought the spirit of a panther – sleek, dark, and cunning – fit easily inside his skin. It was not to say the costume was not impressive; its cruel mouth snarled, pure fangs bared in the ecstasy of the predator.

He quickly forgot his resentment as the drum continued in the very bones of his being, urging him to press closer and more fiercely with each passing minute. Pansy was a good mover – she had to be after sixteen years of elite training – and fit into his arms perfectly. Their bodies seemed to tear at each other in succulent ripples, subtle to the observer, but filled with a desperation and newfound intimacy to the two movers. Draco had never felt so released and euphoric in his life; behind the hardened panther's smile, his own mask of etiquette and cold politeness, crafted over so many years of hardship, slipped.

Hours passed uncounted as creatures spun from one partner to the next. The stag danced next to him with an eagle, eyes crinkling in a warm smile that remained hidden behind his mask. He turned and saw a leopard swaying with the arms of a butterfly around him, a unicorn impatiently spinning beside them with a griffon. Far off, he saw what could only be Crabbe and Goyle, slow and blundering under their uninspired serpent attire. They danced alone, the rhythm finding no home in their dull limbs. A dragon pressed close to him once, pushed by the force of a silken black bird. Draco looked proudly at the bird in his arms, and thought that she was easily the more beautiful.

Draco never paused in his movements, never far from Pansy, his liberated eyes always on hers. Torn apart again and again, their bodies always found the other's within moments, lust only strengthened and increased.

He could no longer sustain the seductive movements; he broke away, breath winding through his mouth in a soundless gasp. Tugging his rook through the crowd, eyes glancing at hers mischievously, he pulled her across one of the nine narrow bridges to rest on a white bench. Pansy sat close to him, hands folded neatly in her lap, and stared contentedly across at the dancers through a twisted gap between the trees. Draco paid the movers no attention; his hand covered hers warmly, long fingers reminding her soft flesh of the power they contained. The other crept to her throat, smoothing the clawed talon around her neck. It crawled downwards towards her collar, stroking the feathers there, and came to rest splayed between her breasts.

Pansy started, dislodging his hand, and turned to examine the intention in his eyes. He responded to her silent question; his arms reached up to untie the silk ribbons of her mask, exposing her beautiful face and casting light into blue eyes.

Except that her irises weren't blue. They were brown and steady, inviting instead of seductive. He recoiled at the sight of Hermione Granger sitting in the place of Pansy Parkinson, he leaned away from her hands as she mimicked his gesture. Her fingers clasped around the edges of his mask.

He knew what was going to happen. He knew, without it being explained, why and how she came to be sitting there. He also knew then, in that fraction of a moment, that there was a reason behind this horrific madness, and that it was their purpose to find and end it. Then, his mind froze in the now familiar way, and his puppeteer regained control.

He felt his mask fall away; Granger's eyes narrowed in similar disgust and disappointment. She turned away, head leaning into her palms; he saw her back stiffen. It was his turn, then, to look into her deadened eyes and remember what came after.

Her hands rose limply to his neck, twisting into his dyed hair – black, as hers was – and let the weight drag his face towards hers. His arms curled of their own accord around her waist, fingers beginning the stumbling climb to her chest. Swiftly, though to both the consciences of Hermione and Draco eternity lived in that moment, black lips met silver.

Draco felt his tongue, roots loosened by the power of this imposter, drill between her eager lips to meet freed flesh behind them. They twisted in grotesque contortions, sucking the bitter saliva from the other's mouth. Their heads lolled in sensual pleasure, lips opening time after time to admit the human's most divine instrument.

Seconds, minutes unwound in agonizing mental horror as the owners of the bodies observed their intimate actions. Paper-thin lids fluttered closed, opened, and shielded eyesight again more times than could be counted. Inside their skulls, the two knew only blackness.

It was in that time of displaced existence that they were abruptly returned to command. Their faces snapped away, breath heavy, distancing their sweaty bodies swiftly. Draco, not knowing how long his tongue would be free, took the opportunity to speak.

"Granger," he began haltingly, memories too fresh to be comfortable, "this has got to stop."

Her face flushed angrily. "I didn't do it this time!" she said. "_You _were the one to approach _me_, if you'll kindly remember – not that I would have known. You were masked."

"I know, I know, Granger," he sighed. "I meant we have to stop this—this _thing_ from taking control. No matter how hard we try to eliminate all its opportunities, it designs a way to throw us together." He stopped; she looked at him blankly. "We need to learn how to second-guess it." Her brown eyes were still wide and open to suggestion. They weren't blank, he saw now. They were laughing at him – she was playing with him. He felt his cheeks flush in anger. She was forcing him to admit he had been wrong. If there was one thing he never did, it was to go back on his word. He was swiftly decisive, but he never regretted his mistakes. _But then_, he rationalized, _times of caution require change. This fall is necessary, unavoidable._

He tore his eyes away from hers and set them instead on his hands. "I think," he said, his words measured and weighted, "that we have no choice but to work together."

Her voice was steady; no note of triumph highlighted the words, although if he had looked up, he would have seen the brief look of victory flash through her eyes. "I'll meet you at the library tomorrow," she said flatly.

"No, not the library," he said, straightening. "We can't be seen together. This has got to stay between us, for the good of my reputation and yours."

"Professor Nockford's room then," she said. "At lunch. She already knows, anyway, so it can't do any harm." She stood and brushed off her robes, gathering the mask in her hands. "Out of curiosity, who did you think I was?" she asked.

"Pansy."

"Ah, the slut extraordinaire," she said spitefully; the comparison needled her. She raised a single eyebrow at him before disappearing under her mask, tongue melting once more.

Draco paled, his hands shaking. "Do _not _speak of her that way," he spat. "Pansy is far better than you, Granger, more than you could even begin to comprehend. You stupidity and disgust for your superiors is all that blinds you. You talk of 'equality' and 'starting over' and 'stereotypical bastards,' but I see now it's only using up air — you don't truly believe in it. If I hear one more thing about Pansy, so help me God, I'll—" His words ceased; the mask fitted neatly on his forehead, tongue returned to stone anonymity.

The tension between the two followed them over the bridge, each desperately wishing to push the other into the water, but were confined by the truce they had agreed upon. Though it pleased the other to think so, neither was dishonest. Their resigned hostility could be felt from across the Great Hall, as panther and raven claimed their rightful partners.

* * *

The torrential torrent of blood that ran through the veins of the Heart had reduced to a mere trickle, crawling down the rough flesh that led them downwards. The eternal beating diminished to an inaudible pulse, silently tying their hearts and fates into a single braid: each strand dependent on the others.

In the gloom, Wormtail snuffled, silent mucus winding with the salt tears that welled in the cup of his neck. Lucius Malfoy, cruel and shrewd, said nothing until sobs began to echo off the narrow walls.

"My dear Pettigrew," Malfoy said mock-concernedly, "do stop sniveling. It's doing nothing to better our chances for success."

Wormtail attempted to quiet his cries, and was suddenly compelled by an abrupt and gruesome premonition to confess, honestly and completely, to this enemy that strode in front of him. "I never wanted to serve him, Malfoy," he murmured, interrupted with violent hiccoughs. "I was forced into it by terror, and now I think I won't ever come out of here alive. All for a cause I don't even believe in—"

Malfoy whipped around, hand at the base of Wormtail's slippery throat. He put his face dangerously close, words soft. "I would keep quiet if I were you. The Dark Lord does not like traitors, and is even less fond of cowards." He unclenched his hand and looked at the wet palm distastefully. Wormtail shrank back, content to sob in silence as he followed Malfoy's malignant back.

_My Lord_, Malfoy thought, _you have chosen your sacrifice well. All is how you want it.

* * *

_

**A/N: **Thus ends the encounters for the next couple of chapters, my darlings! I proofread this chapter about a million times, so hopefully there won't be mistakes. Er...I don't think that there's any other news, really — all of the rest was explained at the top. (If you missed it, at least read the second paragraph...that's the important part.) Oh, I guess if I'm going to take this editing thing all the way, updates may be a little farther apart...you'll have to excuse me, but this is really important to me. I still feel horrible that it happened. Sigh.

Okay, onto thank-you's:

**Ally:** Heya, love! Aw, thanks so much for your very very very long review...I'm glowing and blushing all over. I hope that this chapter was similar in quality...it was remarkably hard to write for being so simple. Eek...I hope it didn't fall into the category of badly written Masquerade fics – I tried so hard to keep that from happening. You pointed out a couple of interesting things though...well, one is the "attraction" between Draco and Hermione you mentioned. There _is _(physical) attraction between them, though it is involuntary, but remember that they have nothing but disgust for each other when they are in full control of their bodies. I mean, think of the reaction Draco had when Hermione mentioned they should work together (Chap. 7)...I guess most of it was that he was afraid, but some of it was that he felt it would be downright unpleasant to work with her. It was quite an effort for him to propose it in this chapter. Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that I hope that his relationship with Pansy didn't destroy what I had set-up in previous chapters...she is his official consort, and the action between Hermy and Draky is just an unpleasant and frightening sideshow to him. And when he explodes on her behalf, I hope I conveyed that there's more there than just sex. Ah, and the mention of his line about how he was scared he was going to murder someone and how that showed the difference between him and his father...that hadn't even occurred to me. I'm obviously going to have to address his tie between him and Lucius (got it planned out already), but that was sort of an involuntary lead-up, eh? Hah, your perceptions surprise me sometimes, but THEY WORK. Awesome, one loose end I've sort of already introduced. (By the way, if you're ever interested in sending me those puddings or flowers...let me know. I'll be glad to take them off your hands...and Draco too, for that matter.) Wow, let's see. Sexiness. Yeah, it is sort of hot isn't it, that someone else controls their actions? Be so horrifying though, no matter what action you get. Though seeing it's Draco...I wouldn't mind. Me! Pick me! Sigh. The author refuses to write Alison in. I should go throw a tantrum in the corner...sob. I suppose I can't sign off begging you to update, seeing as you JUST DID (what a present!), but I guess I could always hope...groveling at your feet, Honored Ally. I'll email you just as soon as I get this chapter posted, so we can talk about Masquerades, eh?

**Lorett: **Believe it or not, love, you picked the same lines that were my favorite. I was depressed over how long winter was dragging on in D.C., and those scenery lines just sort of flowed out of my pen. I think that might have been the one paragraph I didn't change at all, when I was transcribing and editing from paper to computer. God, Draco is so sexy, isn't he? I fall in love with him more and more as I write him. He's easier to write than Hermione personally, just because writing Hermione is like writing myself...it's so hard to picture what I'd do in situations like those she experiences. I'm getting a grip on her more and more though, so hopefully she'll start behaving logically (at least to me). Oh, I'm glad my little explanation thing helped, by the way. Though you might want to take note that Hermione doesn't know she can Sense...she has an idea that she can sort of do it, but she can't control it, for one thing. She doesn't know much about it, for another. I have two HUGE explanation chapters coming up next, however (well, they might be a wee bit shorter than this last one) which will reveal a lot of what's going on. Oh, and your single (yay! I'm getting better!) question: the first time Draco said, "This changes things" — that was him. He didn't know that Sense "chose" her...to him, he sees something new (not necessarily good) in Hermione. The second time he said it, it was the thing controlling him, turning it into something a wee bit sexual. Ah, so sorry I couldn't make it over to YOU, but I really wanted to post this chapter before I had to go back to school (tomorrow, unfortunately). I'll be there soon, I promise. Okay, I'll talk to you soon, my dear.

**Slyswn: **Ah no, I won't hit you, my dear. I promise. I like your reviews too much. You can come out now, dearie, I won't bite. Swear. Hm, I'm so glad you enjoyed last chappie! I was really excited by the reaction to it...it seemed pretty positive, on the whole. I hope this one didn't disappoint, loyal reviewer. Oh, but that reminds me...I have a question FOR YOU. Now now, no reason to fall out of your chair...but what exactly does your pen name stand for? Does it have a story behind it? I know I've misspelled it about a zillion times, but I'm interested. Of course, if you'd rather not tell, I understand. I can't wait to hear what you thought on the Masquerade though...tell tell! Now now!

**Callista: **Yay! You reviewed again! Happy dance now...yeah, you have to do it, too! I hope you keep reviewing, dear, I appreciate your comments and questions very very very much. Which brings me to today's little lesson: Who is taking over our dear Draco? Well, Callista, that's an interesting question...one that a bunch of people have touched upon but haven't actually ASKED like you did. And the answer is:...hah, you've got to wait to find out! (Not long now, actually, you'll find out next chapter though the purpose of it won't be revealed until the end.) So you didn't miss it in there, dear, don't worry. I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this newest little encounter...yum. A little action at last!

**Angel: **HELLO! A new friend! Yay yay yay! You brought up a couple of questions, too, that are interesting concepts. One of 'em I touched upon with Ally up top, but I don't mind a whit repeating it: the "feelings" between the two. There _is _physical attraction between them, though it is somewhat involuntary, but remember that they have nothing but disgust for each other when they are in full control of their bodies. I mean, think of the reaction Draco had when Hermione mentioned they should work together (Chap. 7)...I guess most of it was that he was afraid, but some of it was that he felt it would be downright unpleasant to work with her. It was quite an effort for him to propose it in this chapter. So don't jump the gun, my dear — actual admiration and friendship will come in its own sweet time. Now, the other thing...that was the last of the encounters for awhile. I know...sad, eh? There will be a couple more, but later on. In the next couple of chapters, there will be some pretty low-key incidents that you're going to have to decide whether its voluntary, controlled, or mere coincidence...eek! I just gave a preview! Argh! So, please keep those questions coming! You don't know how much I appreciate them. I'm so glad you're enjoying it, and hope that you will continue to.

**Mrs-Accio-Firebolt: **Me? A genius? Really? That compliment made my day...week even, after being so miserably sick. I was getting worried that you weren't going to review, my dear...I've already become addicted to you. Sad, I know. But true. I was so angry with myself over those stupid little mistakes...I couldn't believe I did that! I'm so critical (grammar and spelling-wise) in other people's fics, and I didn't take the time to proofread. As you can see, however, I'll be much more careful from now on, and fix those things you mentioned to me before. Feel free to notify me if you see another one in upcoming chapters, though. Hm, I suppose I really should get a beta...I don't know if you are or know anyone interested in being one. Sigh. Too many things..not enough time to do 'em in. And I'm so glad that the Lucius/Wormtail mini-chapters came through for you! You can see why they're fun to write...it's nice. If there was a way, I'd recap them like I do for the Hermione/Draco plot, but I can't figure out a good way to do that. (I sort of did it for the Fate scene though, just because it seemed necessary.) Now, as for your questions...I can sort of answer one of them. The rest you're going to have to wait and see (the purpose of the Sensing scenes will be revealed in two chapters or so...at least partly. You'll see where they're going.) But Hermione's exact function, I can expand a little on. I think that it's very similar to the Harry/Riddle diary scene – I had forgotten all about that – but not quite. The main difference is that Hermione really _is _there when she dreams (and it's taking place as she witnesses it; it's not a memory)...it's like the Matrix (have you seen that?): if you die in the Matrix, your body dies in the real world. I guess you could say it's her mind down there with them, but only when she Dreams (the rest of the time it's in her body, ready to be taken over...heh heh heh). Remember, Lucius heard her splash as she entered the blood flood (Chap.1/ Chap. 2), but he didn't see anything. So she's safe from _them_ at least, but her fate is tied to theirs. They have no idea she's following, and probably never will. Hm, that explanation seemed to confuse more than it seemed to clarify. Ah, I'll think of a better way to put it, if you didn't quite get it. Okay, I think that's all. Can't wait to hear your thoughts on the Masquerade...it wasn't quite as plot heavy as the rest, si?

**To everyone else who's reading but not reviewing, thanks for stopping by! I'd still love to hear from you, and would be very grateful if you would leave a little note or any questions you might have! **(That means you, too, reviewers who haven't reviewed the last couple times. I've missed you terribly, and really value your opinions. Looks around meaningfully) **Right, so get cracking!**

Kisses to You All,  
Alison 


	9. Possibilities

**Disclaimer: **Mine? I wish.

**A/N: **Well, this chapter has just been a string of disasters (writing it, I mean). I'm going to list my excuses even if it only makes me feel less guilty, so you guys will just have to suffer through my complaints: mild case of writer's block, end of the advisory (projects just PILED on us, no slack at all), no internet/phone service for a WEEK, and a corrupted file. Basically, that boils down to: I would have been only a week late, except that life was too hard on me. Sorry, folks. I've started the next chapter though, so the wait shouldn't be nearly as long as last time.

Now, take a read and finally get some answers, eh?

* * *

_Last Time -_

"I know, I know, Granger," he sighed. "I meant we have to stop this—this thing from taking control. No matter how hard we try to eliminate all its opportunities, it designs a way to throw us together." He stopped; she looked at him blankly. "We need to learn how to second-guess it." Her brown eyes were still wide and open to suggestion. They weren't blank, he saw now. They were laughing at him – she was playing with him. He felt his cheeks flush in anger. She was forcing him to admit he had been wrong. If there was one thing he never did, it was to go back on his word. He was swiftly decisive, but he never regretted his mistakes. _But then_, he rationalized_, times of caution require change. This fall is necessary, unavoidable._

He tore his eyes away from hers and set them instead on his hands. "I think," he said, his words measured and weighted, "that we have no choice but to work together."

* * *

_Chapter 9 - Possibilities_

Passion stared into the glittering depths of the flames, transparent smoke rising to her veil and resting idly about the edges. Her puppets had faded, no longer tangible under wrinkled fingers. Where they had hung from her sharp cords, there remained only two silhouettes, shadows tangled in a contortion of dark pleasure and the parallel disgust for the mud of mindless sexuality.

She leered unseen, enviously pleased with their swiftly dissipating forms and all they represented: The cries of mercy, echoing deep in the abyss of human existence. The tortured pain of undeserved and unrealized and unyielding love. The realization that the flesh is not like that of the gods, but as simple and undignified as the crawling animal the human is.

It was not her place to taste this organic delight, to revel in her creation. Her task was only to plant the seeds of need in each fleshy body that escaped from the womb, to feed it until it bloomed. The shadows, engulfed by the famished fire, had felt the black roots settle in their guts, prepared to send out virgin blossoms.

She had only to wait, and watch the spectacle that would follow. Behind her, Cruelty crouched, malicious eyes resting hungrily on the place where she would fulfill her part, cast long ago by those who created life and its purpose.

* * *

Professor Nockford stood silently at the door, imposing presence escorting the two inside her classroom. She leaned against the doorframe, wise eyes dissecting the two before her: one exasperated, and one disdainful. Both were resigned to the labor of withstanding the other's company; both were eager, though for different and selfish reasons.

"You have not been honest with me," she said. It was stated as an observation, nothing more. The boy, Malfoy, bristled as if admonishment had been the words' intent, but said nothing. It was the girl, Granger, who spoke, rational words reaching to reassure the professor.

"I'm sorry, Professor, I really am. You see, just at the times of the displacement, it didn't occur to us to come to you," she lied evenly. "We panicked. There was no logic to our decision, we were just grasping at straws."

"Of course," Professor Nockford replied, sarcasm so delicately veiled that Hermione almost mistook it for belief. Her eyes swept the room once before she turned to the door. "I'm going to leave the two of you to work without disturbance. I expect a full report of you findings – that is, if there are any to be found." She shut the door softly behind her.

Silence rang throughout the room, eloquent as the words that might have been spoken if the two had had the courage. Hermione looked despairingly down into the cracked palms of her hands; Malfoy extended languidly into the space around him, aware in the discomfort of her presence. They sat like this, a quiet test of stillness, for inestimable moments. It was broken by the swift and startling motion of rustling paper and stretching fingers.

Hermione squared the edges of several scraps of paper sharply on the desk in front of her. "Well," she said assertively, "let's get this over with."

"Please," Malfoy drawled.

"I made a list of possibilities last night," she continued, unheeding. "I couldn't think of much. I was hoping that maybe you could add some things; you know far more about the Dark Arts than I do, and this is right up your aisle." Malfoy shifted in his chair. "So, my first thought was that it was some sort of truth potion."

Malfoy looked at her. Hermione stared quite seriously back; any distaste or dislike was masked by a professional detachment. "A truth potion," he repeated. "Meaning, it surrenders us to our most honest feelings?"

Hermione reddened a little, but shrugged affirmatively. "That was my thought, yes."

"Sorry, Granger, but your dream isn't going to come true. There is no _possible_ way I hold any desire for you."

"There are plenty of types of potions," she said, voice expressionless. "Who knows — somebody could have mixed a love potion in with our drinks, then followed it with a mild truth serum. Oh, I know that love potions never work — I've never held with them, anyway — but there could be all kinds of effects when the two mixed. And we were doing truth potions the first time it happened, remember?"

"There is no way that somebody could have slipped the potion in with your drink, then run across the Great Hall to the Slytherin table and put it in my glass without looking extremely suspicious," Malfoy said flatly. Hermione clutched the paper firmly, unwilling to be convinced. He sighed and looked away, eyes scanning the room for an irregularity. "Look, I know it isn't truth serum. I've had one. I know what it feels like, and that wasn't it."

Hermione knew better than to interrupt. She fastened her eyes on his profile instead, watching the words drip reluctantly off his tongue and roll the long path to her waiting ears.

"My father is what a lot of people say he his, and is a lot of things they don't say," he said, hesitation shattering every word. "I've lived with him for sixteen years, and I've never been able to understand him. I've always thought that your motives design who you are, shape you future — if there is such a thing. But his reasons are so different, so obscure, I've never been able to spread his thoughts before me, and know them before even he does. There aren't many that I can't do that two: he's one, Dumbledore's another."

He rubbed his hands through his hair, traced the grooves of graffiti on the tabletop. "I don't even know why I'm telling you this." Hermione smiled. She knew. Malfoy continued, "What I do know is that my father is strict — painfully so. He lives for rules and destroys those that break them.

"I was about four. Back then, there was no Dark Lord, and it was just a time when I was allowed to grow up. It's funny, I look back now and think of it as peace, but then I thought of nothing except my father's wand and his cane. I used to beg to go to Diagon Alley with him — he went there quite a lot on some Ministry business or another — if only to walk next to him and feel just a corner of his power. One time, the three of us, including my mum, went together, as a family for one of the few times I can remember. We had stopped by some Quidditch store, I think, and I saw a model broom that was meant to teach little kids how to fly. You know, small, compact, safe — hardly two feet long. I begged and cried and screamed for it, but my father refused to buy it for me. Indulgence is something he finds vulgar for everyone but himself.

"My mum argued a bit for me, but it didn't work. She's never really been more than decoration for my father — never really meant anything to him, you know? But she adores him. Anyways, it came to the point that I got so angry I shrunk the broom, by accident of course. It was the first magic I ever did. I stuck it in my father's pocket, and we left.

"My father exploded when he found it. Threw things, threatened to hit me and my mum, and because I was so small and frightened, I blamed it on my mum. I mean, how could I have shrunk it, at that age? She took the punishment without a word. A single word. He must have become suspicious, because he eventually force-fed me a truth serum. He asked me all kinds of questions, exposed all of my deepest fears, just to teach me a lesson." Malfoy fell silent, wrapped thickly in the folds of memory and pain. His hand on the table suddenly pressed deep into the surface, knuckles white as he gripped the edge.

Hermione thought she could guess what had happened afterwards. He had been beaten, and the knowledge of his terrors and humiliations were trapped eternally in the sharp grip of his father's mind. They were used against him, a leash around his throat that had to be jerked every once and awhile in reminder. "Malfoy," she said, hesitant to bring him out of his childhood anguish, "you didn't tell me how it felt."

He jerked his head around to look at her, eyes unfocused and forgetful of their purpose. They settled on her expectant face, spun comfort from a glimmer of warmth deep in her expression. He drew himself up, face contorting as he adopted his familiar mask of contempt. "Don't be so goddamn condescending," he spat. Hermione looked away, mouth puckering at the edges as she grasped the corners of a moment fast receding. "Look, it wasn't like it was between us. When my father fed me the truth potion, I could hear what I said and I saw what was happening, but I never _thought_. I never said to myself, 'I shouldn't be saying this.' Any self-oriented thoughts were detached or erased. Make sense?"

In answer, her quill crossed off the item on the list. "Next, I had the Imperius Curse."

"No."

"It was a longshot," she agreed, voice over-bright. She remembered the blank space, the place between her mind and Professor Moody's as he cast the spell. When she was in the hands of the Controller, however, she was trapped in the darkness of her own skull; she remembered right from wrong.

She frowned and looked down at her neat lips, pursing her lips. "There's no way Voldemort could have developed some sort of variation, is there?" she asked, feeling slightly better at Malfoy's flinch as she named the Dark Lord. "Made a couple of adjustments so it works over long distance? So the spell didn't have to be cast within sight of the victim?"

"I don't think so."

"I kind of doubted it. It didn't feel the same as when Moody put it on us." She scratched the words off, black ink smearing across the parchment. "Right. The next one: possession."

Malfoy leaned forward, interest caught for the first time. He had no immediate answer on his lips, just a glance that prompted Hermione to give her opinion. She breathed out; it was her turn, then, for secrets. But these were not hers to unfold, nor were they necessarily safe to divulge. Though most of the Death Eaters were aware of it, the less who knew, the better.

"Do you remember Second Year, with the Chamber of Secrets?" she began. Malfoy nodded. "Well, it's common knowledge that Ginny was possessed by Voldemort, thanks to the diary your father gave to her." Malfoy shifted his gaze to study the place where the white of the ceiling met the thick wall.

"What's not common knowledge is that Harry was under suspicion of being possessed by Voldemort last year. It's difficult to explain, but from what I've heard and guessed, it spreads from his scar — the link between him and Voldemort. Last year, this scar sometimes joined their minds, so that they saw through each other's eyes and could feel the other's emotions." Hermione paused, gaging Malfoy's reactions. His pale face remained steady and still, only the subtlest motions — there, the nearly invisible tremble high on his cheek; there, the flutter of eyelids beating a sliver more quickly than they had a moment ago — betrayed discovery. Hermione caught them — once, twice — in the browns of her eyes, and knew that perhaps he was not as closely facilitated with the ring of Death Eaters as they once had thought.

"To make a long story short," she continued, "Ginny eventually ruled out any possibility of Harry's being possessed. She said that when you are possessed, you have large lapses in memory, that there are hours unaccounted for."

"So it's not possession," Malfoy said, and melted deeper into his seat. His attention was broken, his eyes watched the lazy migration of the clouds as they descended to the horizon. There were patches of blue between them for the first time in weeks, and a January wind chased them ahead with bloated cheeks.

"There's a loophole," she said, straightening the edges of her parchment thoughtfully. Malfoy watched her hands move, glimpsing black fingers of ink stretch from the corners; her quill had slipped many times in meditation, leaving a trail of dark smears that could no longer be considered proper pictures. "I think that Ginny's exact words were, 'When Voldemort possesses you' — _Voldemort,_ not 'when you are possessed.' She didn't say that it happened every time, not that she could know. She's only been possessed once." She set the papers down firmly, resolutely folding her hands in her lap. "I thought that maybe there's some other form of possession, sort of relaxed. Something that just nudges our bodies in the right direction, because it's too much bother too control our thoughts and memory, too."

She glanced at Malfoy. A shadow of intensity crumpled his forehead, and his eyes flickered from the present to memory and back again in many instants. His mouth silently formed her last sentences. "Wait here," he said suddenly, and bolted from his seat.

Hermione sighed and examined her stained fingers, black from cross-outs and hasty scribbles. She remembered the dull voice with which he recounted one of his greater humiliations. His mortifications had been too long trapped inside; it had merely taken a pair of listening ears to unlock them. He had not known why he trusted her above his closest friends, had faith in her not to use the knowledge against him, but the reason was simple: they shared a new humiliation, a new humbling, together. This tie, unlooked for and perhaps resented, was difficult to break.

Dust floated in streaks of sunlight, shattered by the ever-clean window panes; a spider wound thread over and under streaks of poisonous webbing; a fly, dazed by the heat spreading from a fire in the corner, spun dizzily overhead. Slumber and eternity were trapped in the brown room, just as she was caught between thought and thought. All seemed to rest on the opening of the blackened door.

It sprung aside moments later, startling her from her caged wonder. Malfoy paced through, an old book clutched triumphantly under his arm, his breathing ragged from the swift climb.

He slammed it on her desk, barely giving her time to recognize it from the alcove of the Dark texts in the Library — Myths You Thought Weren't Real: True Stories of God and Fate, she read — before opening it to a broken page.

"There," he said, pointing, "read there."

"_...and with the meeting of earth and sky, four entities were born. They rule the human existence, puppet every child erupted from the womb. Their task is to weave the strings of each life together, to decide birth and death, love and pain. They design each path: the ruts and the forks and the joints as they cross. They have many guises, named and unnamed, but we would know them best as Age, Innocence, Cruelty, and Passion. Together, they form the Fates._

"_It is not known where or how they work, excepting that the fire they dance through and around is their stage. In its flames, limp puppets jerk and are commanded by expert hands..."_

She looked up. "I don't see why that concerns us," she said, but his hands were already blurred as he thumbed to the next dog-eared page. Again, he pointed.

"_...one of these groups is that of the Fates (for more information, refer to page two hundred and twelve). On rare occurrence, perhaps when an outside force threatens them, the Fates take a more direct route. Instead of manipulating each life from a distance, they literally control each human's actions from the inside of the body. There have been testimonies in which the victim remembers what takes place, though these are rare and far apart. Often, if a Fate steps in, she will 'modify' the memory to read as if it was the victim's will to commit the action, not an outsider's. However, for reasons beyond the mere wizard's comprehension, she will sometimes leave the memories to read in an honest fashion. Meddleworth Locket, whose story is recounted on page three thousand twenty-four, has theorized that this minimal display of magical control is designed to only 'hint our limbs to move in the right direction. Their responsibility is huge, and the Fates would most likely prefers to do as least amount of work on an individual as possible."_

"That's it," Hermione said, awed. She ran her fingers over the words, amazed that they had found their answer so easily; often, problems such as these took years to solve. She underlined the name Meddleworth Locket, tempted to read her confessions, but was sure that her story would be sickeningly familiar. She met Malfoy's stare, nodding once in honest gratitude. "That leaves only one question, then. The why. Why us, Malfoy?"

"I don't know. We probably never will," Malfoy said, gently closing the book. He traced the title. He smiled once, coldly but without malice. "But we can try to find out."

"Next week, Library?" she asked, extending her hand. It hung suspended between them, a small sign of weary progress, one that threatened the shadow the old life cast on their futures. Malfoy hesitated, gaze lingering on her bitten nails and bleeding hangnails, then gingerly covered her small palm with his large one.

"Next week," he agreed, and shook on it.

* * *

The tunnel, leading straight and deep into the darkness, twisted suddenly; the corner had masked any light, little chance of its existence as there was, that threatened to break the gloom. As the three stumbled around the bend, a sudden blue glare tore at their eyes with agonizing fury, wrenching eyelids downward in hasty protection.

Slowly, the crack of light between lids melted into vision, the blue reduced to soft illumination. Hermione squinted upwards and around her; they were standing in a chamber similar to that of the Heart — an open globe, though this was much larger. She glanced at her feet and flinched. The flow of blood was incased in blue veins that laced the ground, the source of the nearly blinding light.

With the thin shields of flesh to protect her only human mind, she studied the pattern the veins wove. It was as if they were branches of a deadened tree, a white shadow stark against the dark. They crossed and wove loose knots and parted again, only to join where all leaves begin: at the trunk. Her lidded eyes followed the veins to where they must meet, where they were born.

And there, in the pool of Time it created, rested a single eye. It watched her.

* * *

**A/N: **You'll have to excuse me for typos, but I figured that the sooner this was out, the better. I'll go back and edit it sometime this next week. I know that there wasn't much interaction between the two besides the professional - this chapter just for the explanation. Plus, they made it pretty clear last chapter that they didn't want to remember it, and would act as if it had never happened. Don't worry, some action will start showing up next chapter, but toned way down and not through the Fates (as was illustrated in the beginning of the chapter).

Thank-you's:

**Ally: **Merci beaucoup, ma cherie! You make me blush WAAAY too often, love. Like I said before, I'm really glad you thought I pulled it off. No spectacular giveaway, etc. Now that May has started, I hope that the terrors of April have left you far behind. I know you've got plenty of things going on back home, so no rush, but when are you going to update? I hope life isn't too hectic, and at least you can get in SOME of the things you enjoy in-between it all, whether it's reading or writing or making lemonade. Hugs and kisses, my dear, and chin up!

**Callista: **You like crows better than ravens? Really? Hm, I dunno. I guess I sort of picked the raven vs. the crow just because the name sounds better, to be honest. I actually don't mind crows too much. My mom told me a story when I was little about how when she walked to school, there was this crow that stood on a branch, and croaked "Hello, hello" at everyone who passed it. Sort of illustrated on how it's not entirely mad to say that they're smart, though I once though that they were the dumbest things in the world. Not good for much, that's for sure. Anyways, SO glad you enjoyed the last chap (chills, really?). I know this ones not exactly action-packed, but it's important. It'll be awhile before it picks up to the kind of "action" we all want to see, but I'm going to try to incorporate a bit here and there. Well, interested to hear what you think!

**Slyswn: **Wow. That is an awesome beyond awesome name. Brilliant. Hah, it would have been interesting if you HAD put the "A" in there - made it SWAN. Hehehehe...I'm sure you've heard that a million times though. And Harry and Luna? My my, I learned BUNCHES about you this time. I've never actually read any of those. I suppose I should, shouldn't I? I sort of think that Harry and Ginny WILL end up together, but it's true that most fics with that pairing aren't the most fun. Too obvious, sort of like Pansy and Draco. I just had to use those two to figure out another way to throw our heroes together again. But it sort of adds a more humane side to Drakes, doesn't it? Right, well, I'll leave you now, my dear. Kisses!

**Dani: **Thank you so much, my love! That praise kept me smiling for days. Your words meant a lot to me, and I hope that you'll drop by every now and then, and tell me what you think. (First review, my story? Eeps, shivers all over!) Cheers to you!

**Prin69: **Wow! You reviewed every chapter! Thanks so much, dearie. It meant a lot to have someone take the time to blip a little word of encouragement for every installment. Drop me a line every now and then to let me know what you think!

**Lorett: **What a review! About a million pages long, I think. I believe I responded to most of what you said in an email, so I'll keep it short. (Oh, about Ron...I didn't actually name him, but he was the dragon dancing with Pansy. A dragon COMPLETELY doesn't fit Ron's personality, which is why I had him wear it - I mean, Ron never has been a good judge of character. Plus, I was originally going to do a little blip with Pansy and Ron and their reactions, but decided it took away from the rest of the chapter. Plus, that way Pansy wouldn't have gotten suspicious.) Let's see...I told you about my reasons for Draco and Pansy (they won't be playing much of a role, really, just a way to add a little humanity to Draco)...oh! But pay attention to the Fates scene at the beginning of this chapter. Verrrrry important, it is. Your suggestion of eye contact and all that is going to start being incorporated slowly, but probably not in a way that you intended. Cheers, dearie! I'll talk to you soon!

**Niah (Lady Saint): **First off, before I get to the actual review, I just want to tell you how much I adore your name. It's wonderful. And thank you so much for your kind words! Warmed me right up! (It's May and FREEZING here...who knows why.) I hope to hear from you as the story progresses...this chapter was a bit different from the others, and I'm curious to hear what you thought.

**Mrs-Accio-Firebolt: **TWO REVIEWS? I feel absolutely, positively loved. Down to my toes and right through my bones. Not to mention the review itself...wow. I don't think anyone has every said something that nice to me in my LIFE. (By the way, if you ever think of the name of that movie you mentioned, I'd be interested to know.) Cruelty's part is swiftly approaching, as you may have noticed. But remember, she has TWO tasks now, though the second may not be revealed for awhile. Now, your mention of Draco's vanity with the costume...hah. I hadn't even really thought of that. That paragraph just sort of...came. I didn't really take the time to analyze the "why." But your mention of it put it in a whole new light. Man, writing that scene was so much fun. This one kind of seemed a let-down after that. Maybe it's why I struggled with it, but I certainly realized that returning to real life is no fun. Things will be quieter for awhile, though I've got some interesting things planned. A different kind of interesting though, not so otherworldly - as much as it breaks my heart to say so. Well, hopefully this chapter didn't disappoint TOO much. I updated fast (as I could) just for you! Much love right back atcha, darlin'!

**BflatMajorScale: **Thank you so much, my dear! I'm THRILLED to hear you'll keep reading (looks at you pointedly). I dunno if you noticed, but the no taking part thing will slow down for awhile. Possibly forever. Except for Cruelty's half, of course. She's swiftly approaching the spotlight...Hope to hear from you soon!

**Ziggy4ever: **Well, I updated...Heh heh. So it might have taken me a month too long, but at least it's here now. Right? Anyways, thank you so much for the words of encouragement. It's things like that for which this whole program was created! Can't wait to hear from you!

**Minty (FallingWithGhosts): **Man, yet another pen name I just loved! It's absolutely gorgeous. I completely agree with the whole Head Boy/Girl fics, though there are some very good ones out there. But you're right – a wee bit overused. Actually, I am sort of writing a second fic, VERY different from this though (I won't be posting until I'm completely done with the bulk of it) – less dark. In fact it's just sort of a simple romance story, without all the extra jazz, and I'm using the Head Boy/Girl scenario. But hopefully it won't be anything like what some authors do with the whole "BOOM! In love!" approach, as you so appropriately labeled. But thank you so much for your words in regards to this story, sweets. They made me smile. Can't wait for your thoughts!


	10. Full Circle

**Disclaimer: **Mine? I wish.

* * *

_Last Time - _

"The Fates. That's it," Hermione said, awed. She ran her fingers over the words, amazed that they had found their answer so easily; often, problems such as these took years to solve. She met Malfoy's stare, nodding once in honest gratitude. "That leaves only one question, then. The why. Why us, Malfoy?"

"I don't know. We probably never will," Malfoy said, gently closing the book. He traced the title. He smiled once, coldly but without malice. "But we can try to find out."

"Next week, Library?" she asked, extending her hand. It hung suspended between them, a small sign of weary progress, one that threatened the shadow the old life cast on their futures. Malfoy hesitated, gaze lingering on her bitten nails and bleeding hangnails, then gingerly covered her small palm with his large one.

"Next week," he agreed, and shook on it.

* * *

_Chapter 10 - Full Circle_

Snake was not idle. He prowled the edge of the fire, cloaked face swiveling as he studied and predicted each entity. His greatest task lay before him, one whose weight dragged at his shoulders.

He was tired, so very tired. He was old as the Fates themselves, a spirit ripped from the same womb from which man had sprung. Yet he, unlike them, was meant for a different purpose, one higher than the Fates could ever dream of. It was this that allowed him to cut their strings from his corpse, bend their backs in servitude. It allowed him to manipulate, to torture, to enslave. It burned inside him, a black oil that coated every particle of his being.

Man created him. It was his purpose to destroy man.

Snake lit a second fire, one that burned black and silver, the one that would bear the final weapon. Out of its depths, a knife would rise, deadly even to the immortal flesh of the gods.

* * *

It took three meeting to shatter the question of Why into the simple one of How. It took them into the first week of February, when the Christmas decorations had long since faded, to be replaced by lace and flirtation. Outside, the snow had become tiresome; its white folds weighed weary branches downward, cemented a wall of monotony around the restless students.

The students retaliated by creating their own excitement. Rumors flew wild, and drama was spun from daily blunders. Hermione found herself appreciating the conferences with Malfoy, the calm and quiet of the Library surreal in comparison to the confusion of reality.

She viewed their time together as an eddy in the torrent of magical vivacity of Hogwarts; it bent backwards, peacefully spun the other way in heavy thought. Even if the bank was as treacherous and slippery as ever, each moment spent in that sanctuary slid by with a stillness that soon became cherished. Little by little, Hermione gradually became accustomed to the idea that perhaps she valued Malfoy's opinion just as much as she valued the quiet they shared. She could not ignore that he and she were similar in a way she couldn't quite identify; the mud of the bank and the mud clouding the river were nearly the same, even if she believed that the river's clay was the blacker and richer.

She entered the Library with a smile, one shoulder low and sore under the weight of her bag. She dropped it by the table and sank down into a chair, a sigh stumbling from her lips. Malfoy had already put their parchment, brimming with ideas, in the center of the table. Up at the top, it read, _Why did the Fates choose us? _It was followed by a series of queries and cross-outs, each underlined as they became the center of their research. Answers were posed, but both knew that the words were thin and based on nothing more than assumption, the most basis for mistake.

All this led to the final question, circled many times in deep ink: _How can we fight them? _In that single word "fight", there were a thousand other words struggling to show their letters" escape, battle, liberate, defeat, flee. To bury the memories, to suffocate the terror and confusion the Fates caused. But written below the words — stated and otherwise — there was only white emptiness.

Malfoy looked up as she sat beside him, hastily shutting his book closed. He placed it above the paper, gold title glinting from cracked cover. In its pages, they had found their Controller, but it was doubtful that they would discover any other answers. "Think of anything?" he asked.

Hermione shook her head. In the quiet that followed, her eyes caught on the word "Gods" blinking at her in the dim light. "Malfoy," she said abruptly, "do you believe in God?"

He followed her gaze, hardly surprised by her question. She often asked things like this, but whether to discover what lay within him or whether to evaluate herself, he was not certain. It seemed almost as if she were exploring her own character through conversation, and he had a suspicion she had grown up more rapidly in their meetings than during all the moments she had shared with Potter and Weasley.

"I don't believe in _God_, necessarily," he said. He had quickly learned to answer honestly; Granger had a knack for seeing through his lies. "I've always been brought up by believing in gods, plural. There are so many religions and so many beliefs — I mean, why can't they all be right? I guess I still believe in it, but not actively, with prayer and church and all that shit. My family has never been big on religion. Do you believe in Him?"

This question was unnecessary; she would have told him anyways. Hermione shrugged. "I did believe in Him for awhile, complete with 'prayer and church and all that shit.'" She winced at the word. "But then I found I didn't like being judged for each and every one of my actions."

"Get used to it," Malfoy snorted. "That's all we humans know how to do."

"But in the end, _we're _the final judge. Each one of us, by ourselves. No other," Hermione said, a single finger stemming his argument. "The thing about religion is that it sets boundaries. I'd much prefer my character to be the one who limits what I can and cannot do. I hate the idea of a set destiny."

"Bullshit," Malfoy said. "We're controlled by the Fates, aren't we?"

Hermione frowned, but chose not to pursue the subject. She splayed fingertips on the parchment, resting them gently around their question. She sat in thought for a moment, motionless and suspended in their purpose. "Why have they stopped before?" she murmured, hardly aware she spoke outloud. "What did we do to break their control?"

"Nothing. The Fates just dropped us," Malfoy said. He looked beyond their table, studying a distant bookcase. A motion had caught his attention, but he was unable to determine whether it was splintered sunlight or a strand of stray hair that he'd glimpsed. He blinked, and in the infinitesimal interim, it vanished. He stared at emptiness.

"Well, the first couple of times, it only took another person to look them in the eyes to break it," Hermione said, chewing on the inside of her cheek. "But the times after that, the control stayed strong even when I struggled."

"How do you know a Fate didn't tell you to look me in the eye or to struggle?" Malfoy asked.

Hermione opened her mouth to answer, then closed it, honestly puzzled by the question. She took the book in her hands and opened it to the first page she read an eternity ago: _"They rule the human existence, puppet every child erupted from the womb. Their task is to weave the strings of each life together, to decide birth and death, love and pain. They design each path: the ruts and the forks and the joints as they cross."_

She tapped her quill against the page. It was probable, then, that the Fates controlled her response to Malfoy's advances.

Malfoy gave an audible sigh and stood, stretching his hand out for the book. Hermione looked up at him, automatically handing it to him, and feeling reluctantly disappointed that he was leaving so quickly after her arrival. It surprised her when he turned back when he was only a few paces from the table. "Come on," he said. She grabbed her bag from the floor, and stood to follow him. "Leave it," he said, referring to her books.

He walked briskly away, forcing her to jog to catch up to him. "Where are we going?" she asked, attempting to match his long stride.

"Back," he said.

"What do you mean, _back_?"

He looked at her. "You ask too many questions, Granger. I'll tell you when I'm ready." He paused when he reached the Potions section, and fleetingly searched the area for listening ears. He bent low, and suddenly grabbed her skull in his large hands, jerking it to rest near his lips. "Listen, Granger," he said, voice so low it was hardly audible, "I'm about to show you what I swore never to do. You must never, ever share this with anyone. If you do, I _will _find you, and you won't live much longer."

He released her, but kept her gaze in a promise of earnestness. Hermione nodded, and he turned away, satisfied. She rubbed her neck, sore from his rough handling, but her heart thrummed with anticipation and quickly absorbed her resentment.

"Watch," Malfoy ordered, leading her down the Potions aisle. He stooped in front of a bookshelf near the center, and rested a finger on the black spine of a thin book. "Sixth bookcase, sixth shelf, sixth book," he recited. He glanced at her and grinned, then pulled the book off the shelf. "Here we go," he whispered.

Hermione watched, lips parted in wonder, as the hole where the book had been grew until it became a crude arch through which one could travel. It rested above the floor, high enough that she had to scramble to climb over the stoop. As soon as her feet touched the floor, the door vanished to create a shadowed tunnel that crept onwards.

"Malfoy?" she called, voice echoing off the dripping walls.

She heard footsteps behind her, and whipped around to see a silhouette step through thin air. "Right here, Granger," Malfoy said. He put his fingers to her elbow, steering her confidently through the darkness. "The candles start up here."

Hermione nodded. Light skulked through the blackness, illuminating iron spikes that erupted from the walls. Rust coated the stone red, and green slime slid downwards to pool at the base of the wall. The ground was cracked and uneven, the footing treacherous even where it became level. And everywhere, a seeping cold breath twisted around her arms, suckling her warmth where it spun from her flesh.

She unconsciously pressed closer to Malfoy. "What is this place?" she finally managed to ask.

"A library," he said. Seeing her disbelief, he added, "We have a ways to go. My father showed it to me at the end of our Second Year. Salazar Slytherin allegedly began it in the hopes that it would be used by members of his House, except almost everyone has forgotten about it now. My father said that it was probably created because Slytherin was afraid the curriculum would be dumbed down for Mudbl— I mean, part-Muggles. I suppose it might have been, from his perspective, because we aren't learning half the things that are kept in this place."

They walked in silence after that, footsteps reverberating before and behind them. Hermione kept on glancing over her shoulder, wondering how long the doorway stayed open. She could almost hear a third set of treading shoes interwoven with the sound of her own, slinking along in their wake.

The two rounded a corner, and the low ceiling of the tunnel suddenly vanished. It reappeared far above them, shedding a silver light that softly dusted the innumerable bookshelves below. As she descended down the stairs, she craned her neck upward, and found that the light poured from the eye sockets of hundreds of snakes hissing maliciously at her dwarfed form. She froze, cowering on the broken stairs that led into the main body of the library. She chanced a glance upwards; the snakes circled threateningly, but they were bound by a magical prison far stronger than their hatred.

"Come on," Malfoy said, beckoning her down the stairs. He began to walk towards the distant west wall that stretched before him. "Most of these shelves are empty, but there are enough books left to probably find an answer. It's our best bet."

Hermione followed him down a row, hesitant to touch the texts that slept on either side. She screwed up her courage to drag an ancient tome from the shelf, one that hadn't been touched in a century. The air around them soon filled with dust that crept into every pore of their body, until they lived and breathed it. Hermione felt her eyes redden and water each time she opened a cover, but was too enthralled by the words before her to stop. This place, once a sanctuary for her greatest enemy, had become her paradise for the moments spent there. It was ironic, she knew, just as it was ironic for her to enjoy the time she spent with her rival more than any she had experienced in months.

They worked quickly and quietly, interrupting the hush whenever a mention of the Fates appeared. The hope that had knotted in Hermione's breast slowly unwound, leaving a trail slick with disappointment behind. Several times she came across Dark spells so powerful and complex she was positive would work to break the Fates' control, but Malfoy shook his head each time.

"No, look," he'd point out, exasperated. "It says you have to bathe your wand in unicorn blood. Besides, it's not as if we're going to actually find the Fates and cast this spell of — what was it? — enslavement. We need protection spells. Look for those."

Surprisingly, there were a number of defensive spells scattered through the pages; Hermione had always imagined to the Dark Arts to be strictly offensive. But as she read further, she found that they only shielded the caster from a spell too Dark to be taught in any Defense Against the Dark Arts class.

She looked up when they neared the end of the row and shivered, feeling that it seemed distressingly familiar. Malfoy worked a bit ahead of her, reaching the books she never could. She straightened, and noticed an empty space between two thick volumes. It hit her.

They had come in a full circle; she now stood where the Fates had begun their work. She unconsciously stretched her hand forward, mimicking that afternoon when Sense had found her, in the recesses of the Dark alcove. Perhaps a bit poorly named, she decided, but she had remembered nothing of that journey except the single moment when her hand touched his.

"Malfoy!" she called, voice high from excitement. "Come here. Look, look! This is where—"

"Yes, I know." He stood by her elbow, eyes on the darkness staring from the shelf, where the book under his arm belonged.

Hermione looked around her again, eyes admiring the long reach of the aisle and the dusty tops of the shelves beyond it. Her gaze rose to the ceiling, where the forbidding snakes hissed and coiled, wishing to strike. "But how could I have missed all this?"

"Fate," Malfoy said.

The word hung heavily between them. Hermione felt its weight press her shoulders to the ground, where she sat against the bookcase and studied the patterns of dust on the floor. "Fate," she murmured, over and over again. Suddenly, she realized something terrible and frightening, something that arrested her body and dragged her to the earth. If the Fates designed each path, then there was no such thing as choice, she thought. There was no such thing as chance. Malfoy had been in the Dark alcove because the Fates had given him a logical reason to be, though truly it was simply because she had to meet and notice him. It had been no accident that Dumbledore had mentioned the Potions essay, but was part of a web so complex that she found herself stumbling beyond comprehension for the first time in her life. She did understand, however, that its cords were wrapped firmly around her wrists; she could never escape.

"Malfoy," she said, overwhelmed. She paused and breathed deeply, raw and afraid of this knowledge. "We can't fight them. Whatever happens, it happens because they _made _it so. It means that there isn't decision, that our life is planned before we're even born. There's no way out of this, Malfoy."

The terror of this concept settled around her shoulders, gently bent her neck towards her knees. She felt anger needle her eyes, and tears of resentment pooled in the well of her elbow. Everything she had understood was wrong: she was enslaved, without freedom or daylight in her solitary journey. She forced back the fury that threatened to consume her on the behalf of her mother; her mother had not died for a reason, for simple amusement — it was too cruel. She buried the thought where the memories of her mother lay, where they still ached too much to remember. There were times when it was better not to feel.

Malfoy gingerly put a hand on her shoulder, concerned despite himself. She started; she had not realized he had sat beside her. "You okay?" he asked. She looked away, tipping her head back to hide the tears. Softly, gently, he rubbed a thumb across her cheeks, absorbing the moisture into his flesh.

Hermione's breath caught. It was a simple gesture, innocent, nothing more than what a friend would do. _Had she come to consider him a friend? _she wondered. _No. We are too different, there's too much between us. _But as his thumb streaked across her cheekbones, leaving the dust from the library behind, she felt a shiver sigh and stretch from hiding, scrambling up her spine from her gut. She swallowed, suddenly afraid of this sensation and its meaning. _She _had certainly not told her body to react this way.

Why had he even done that? If she didn't quite think him a friend, there was no way he thought of her as one. _Perhaps he respects me,_ she thought. _Perhaps this is a mark of respe—_

"Thank you, Malfoy," her mouth said. Her voice trembled — from nervousness or tears? — and then continued, her caged frustration erupting. "Oh, why do I always have to call you that? Can't we talk without the stupid last names? It's such a ridiculous tradition. It doesn't do anything but keep us strangers. I mean, they talk 'inter-House unity' and 'equality,' but how do they expect us to_ become_ friends when we have that dumb restriction?"

She clapped a hand over her mouth. She wasn't supposed to tell him that; it was supposed to stay intimate, hugged close around her middle. Her tongue had separated from thought, had wagged loose when her guard had been let down. She chanced a glance at Malfoy, who looked calmly down at her. She saw that indentation by the corner of his mouth, the one that would collapse and become a cavern as he laughed in her face. She saw the shadow in his eyes, the one that contracted as his respect for her was swallowed by the familiar repugnance.

"I—I'm sorry," she muttered. "Don't know what I was thinking. I mean, it makes sense to stay on a last name basis — after this is over, there won't be any reason to continue seeing each other. Like, seeing each other as in, 'Oh, look, I see you,' not as in dating. You're seeing Parkinson right? As in dating? Oh God, I feel so st—"

"Shut up," Malfoy said, beginning to laugh. "Just shut up. You're making a fool of yourself, Granger." She looked away, blushing fiercely. "Look at me. No, in the eye, not at my chest." She grudgingly raised her eyes, staring at his nose instead. "Granger, I don't mind you using my first name. Here, if you want, I'll go first. Hermione."

She met his gaze. The blood still inflated her cheeks, still pounded at her ears, but she took the time to search his intention. There wasn't any spite, any flicker of vengeance flickering in the depths of his eyes. "Good," she said tersely, and left it at that.

"One thing," Draco said. "Don't use my name outside of our meetings. I don't want to be embarrassed."

Hermione bit her cheek, bitterness bleeding from the cut in her mouth. "Come on," Hermione said curtly, standing up. "Class will be beginning soon."

* * *

And there, in the pool of Time it created, rested a single eye. It watched her.

Hermione screamed, silence straining from her lips; she, a simple Dreamer, could make no sound here. She felt the terror tremble in her veins, felt it take control of caution and clear thought. She staggered and fell, body rolling down the curved floor towards the monstrous thing at the bottom. She shut her eyes tight, hoping against hope that the momentum would fail and she would slow to a halt before she made contact.

With a lurch, she hit against soft flesh and rested at the base of the eye. She squinted at it fearfully, and lay still in the chance that it would overlook her if she made no movement. As the moments stretched on, she moved her own eyes gently to survey her surroundings. It was not a disembodied eye, as she once thought. She found she lay just beneath a nose, whose wide holes whistled with whispered breath. Below, there were two lips which led to a chin, and a small body that extended beyond that.

It was a fetus, skin a blue that melted into the floor of the chamber.

"Where are we?" she heard Wormtail whimper above her.

"In the Womb," Lucius Malfoy answered. "Where life was created."

* * *

**A/N: **I think this set the record for lengthiest chapter. Originally, there was supposed to be a lot more in this, but the Library scene kind of ran away with me. But, on the bright side, I chugged it out in only two weeks (at the price of some typos)! Just for you, my wonderful readers. Now go congratulate me with some reviews, eh?

But first, thank you's:

**Callista: **And how about THAT, my dear? I wrote it with you in mind. I did just like you asked, and started a bit of the romance. If that's what you call it. We just passed the vital landmark — first names! Hee hee! (And no, you didn't rush the story, if you're wondering...this was exactly what I had planned. Next time, you have Draco's side to look forward to! Eeps...maybe shouldn't have mentioned that...) AND GAH! The ravens and the crows! I swear that I wrote it in the right order, but I switched it by accident. Though I was thinking of it the right way when I wrote the review...it just came out backwards. Now, about the Fates...I was waiting for someone to ask me that! I think you made my day with that. Well, they're somewhat of an original invention. I actually got the idea from the Witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth, and mixed it in with the idea of the Furies in Greek mythology. (You know, they're those ugly things in Disney-fied Hercules, who cut the string when it's time for someone to die?) I sort of mixed the two together, added a fourth Witch/Fury thing, and voila! Fates. And whether Nockfred is associated with them or not...I'll leave that for you to decide. She's not going to play a HUGE-huge role in this (I'm still working on her a bit), but she does seem to be in the thick of things, doesn't she? Well, greatly looking forward to your next review, sweets! Talk to you soon, I hope!

**Slyswn: **You liked it? Yay! I'm so glad. I just banged out this chapter over the past couple of weeks to make sure you had your dose of PUPPET MASTER much sooner than last time. Your wish is my command, as per usual. (Though I can't promise it will be as quick next time...) And, darling, how do you like this one? Eagerly waitin' your review!

**Lorett: **You blew me away with that review. Seriously, you did. I don't think you left one stone unturned...it was AMAZING. Let's see...you nailed the Fates scene. (The line about the 'the tortured pain of undeserved and unrealized and unyielding love'...well, I suppose it could apply. I mean, I originally just wrote it thinking of the general...but it does seem to fit nicely, doesn't it? We can reflect on that at the end, when everything is wrapped up, si?) And you also got the line when Hermione slipped in a hint of (what could be) her feelings. BRILLIANT. Man, I'm still stunned by that review. And I'm so glad that Draco seemed smart to you...he really isn't just a sex icon (hot though he is). I guess I haven't really read any fics that purposely make him dumb, but all the same...I was glad that his intelligence carried across without me having to say "Me smart. Daddy think me should be better than Hermes." Wait...I guess I vaguely did. GAH! I keep meaning to go back and revamp those first few chapters! Ah...another day, my friend. (And did you notice that your thought of: "So now that THEY know the Fates are jerking them around, HOW are they going to fix it?" was included in this chapter. I swear you read my mind. Right. Now off to write another chapter, ma cherie! Ta ta, my amazing, beautiful darling!

**To everyone else who's reading but not reviewing, thanks for stopping by! I'd still love to hear from you, and would be eternally grateful if you left a little note or question behind.**

Kisses to You All,  
Alison  



	11. Surrender

**Disclaimer: **Mine? I wish.

**A/N: **Again, I have to apologize for a long wait. Unfortunately, the last ten days were consumed by studying for finals, so I've had to grab any chance I could to edit this. (It's quite long, actually, and the Shout Outs even longer.) I'm so so so sorry, but it couldn't be helped.

Still, read on as always, and let me know what you think!

* * *

_Last Time –_

"Shut up," Malfoy said, beginning to laugh. "Just shut up. You're making a fool of yourself, Granger." She looked away, blushing fiercely. "Look at me. No, in the eye, not at my chest." She grudgingly raised her eyes, staring at his nose instead. "Granger, I don't mind you using my first name. Here, if you want, I'll go first. Hermione."

She met his gaze. The blood still inflated her cheeks, still pounded at her ears, but she took the time to search his intention. There wasn't any spite, any flicker of vengeance flickering in the depths of his eyes. "Good," she said tersely, and left it at that.

"One thing," Draco said. "Don't use my name outside of our meetings. I don't want to be embarrassed."

Hermione bit her cheek, bitterness bleeding from the cut in her mouth. "Come on," Hermione said curtly, standing up. "Class will be beginning soon."

* * *

_Chapter 11 – Surrender_

Shadows strained at the corners of Cruelty's veil, scrabbling for a hold in her pitted flesh as she crept towards the edge of the orange flames. Its light peeled the darkness from the hollows of her body, illuminated the terrible expression of ecstasy caught in her small eyes.

A hand crawled forward from the recesses of her black robes. Its fingers were long, brown-spotted twists of bone that trembled as they spread apart. Their joints were old, round and sore with age, the palm thick and scored with many lines. Her nails were broken, yellow tips stained red by the embers.

At once, her chains were thrown into radiance. They plummeted to the swallowed emptiness where Passion's puppets had once danced, sought the wrists of the helpless shadows.

The chains rattled coldly, dragging a silhouette limp with obedience upwards into the light.

* * *

"Draco."

The name fell as a noose around his neck, coarse rope of syllables tugging his unwilling eyes upward. The vision in the flames – bare legs spread wide – vanished with the smoke up the cold chimney. The Common Room fire burned on, unaware that its logs lent heat to far more than outstretched hands.

"What?" Draco answered, more sharply than he meant to. His gaze flickered back towards the glow in front of him; he was reluctant to stay longer in reality. Life's calloused hands were rough at times, and there were moments when one had to unburden oneself in the depths of imagination.

Pansy flinched, mutely handing across a bottle of butterbeer. "Here," she said shortly. She gripped her own bottle tightly in her palm, knuckles white with displeasure. "You looked like you needed this. You've been staring into that bloody fire all night."

Draco snorted. "What else is there to do?" He threw back a swallow of butterbeer and spluttered, eyes streaming yellow tears. "What's in this?" he asked thinly, holding the bottle at arms length.

Pansy smiled maliciously. "Firewhisky." Draco raised his eyebrows at the brown bottle and cautiously swallowed a bit more.

Pansy didn't hesitate; her throat rolled, the burning liquid burrowing a glistening path to her gut. She looked at the ceiling, blinking red rimmed eyes to wash the alcohol away. She glanced around the Slytherin Common Room briefly, noticing tangled hands scattered on thick couches and armchairs, then turned back to study Draco.

His blond hair was tangled, his shoulders low with an invisible weight. Blue crescents puckered beneath his grey eyes, whose gaze wandered back to the fire. His hands, long-fingered and pale, clutched at the bottle. Pansy felt the hate rise, as it had done so many times before as she watched him disappear, locked behind thick walls of thought that barred his mind from hers. Her own fingers shifted on the neck of her bottle, itching to tear his fingers away from the glass and wrap them around her waist. _Why were there no longer whispers, no slender bones sliding through and around her? _she wondered. _Where had their intimacy gone?_

The clock ticked above the mantle.

Suddenly, Draco felt a pressure on his legs, breath creeping across his cheeks. A hand splayed in his hair, another on his chest, and Pansy thrust her face in his. Her lips, tongue, teeth traveled his mouth with drunken passion. "There," she gasped, resurfacing between each frenzied kiss, "and there, and there." She dipped her head again and again, drawing blood to the surface of his thin skin. She must force suffering upon him, her slow wits commanded. She had to make him feel the ice-rimmed gap that yawned between her ribs and her hips.

Draco remained motionless. He returned none of her alcohol embraces, but waited until her frantic abuse had broken itself on the stone of his impassiveness. It happened not long after its beginning; she collapsed in the crevice of his shoulder, sobbing furiously. He coldly shoved her off his lap, watched as she crumpled in a wet heap by his feet.

"What," he asked, "what the hell was that?"

At this, Pansy cried even harder, tears pouring down her face. She reached a trembling hand to his butterbeer balanced precariously on the arm of the chair, and gulped it swiftly. She coughed bitterly, then slammed the bottle down on his foot, golden droplets glimmering on the floor. "That's what," she cried. She laughed piercingly between wrenching sobs, whipping his toes again and again with the hard glass. "That's what!"

Draco didn't move, his face frozen in quiet anger. He didn't attempt to stop her painful attempts of physical revenge, nor did he make a sound.

Pansy stood shakily with the aid of a chair, teeth bared in a wild grimace of rebellion. "I don't know what the bloody hell has gotten into you, Draco!" she said shrilly, her voice slurring in her rage. "Ever since that fucking ball, you've been moody and pissy and—and a perfect little bastard. You haven't paid a shred of attention to me, even when you're fucking me! Even when you're on top of me, you don't see me!" She brought the bottle up, and shattered it on his hand. He didn't say a word, throwing her into further hysterics. Her hands shook at her side, begging to bruise his pale cheeks. "Don't you get it? It's Valentine's Day. We're a _couple_. If you want to continue this, if you love me as much as you say you do, I want something back! I expect a good fuck now and then!"

Her voice rose to a shriek, echoing through the Common Room. The students looked up; Slytherins were by nature close-lipped and subtle, and almost never resorted to physical violence to extract vengeance. Draco felt their eyes and stood, his head rising far above hers. It was time to push this out of sight, to sweep it into past and memory. Pansy had no such intention. She raised her hand, bringing it down with resounding force to his cheek.

It never reached flesh – his fist curled painfully around her wrist, and ignoring her snarling curses, he dragged her thrashing body down the stairs. He tore through the dormitory door, cold eyes signaling Crabbe and Goyle out of the room. Blaise Zabini followed slowly behind him, cool smirk firmly in place.

Draco threw Pansy on the bed, his fists plummeting to his side. "Don't _ever_ embarrass me like that again," he hissed. He brought his hand up to strike her, and Pansy flinched away, heaving with weeping again.

His fingers hesitated at the climax of their trembling journey, suspended in the air above the sheets. His chest heaved with the fury of sleepless nights, of hours spent tossing in a tangle of confusion and strangeness. He looked down at her prone body, tortured with the grief of the overlooked. His hand slowly descended to rest on the mattress beside her, and the terrifying expression in his eyes dripped away, anger pooling around his feet to leak through the stones in the floor. He leaned against the bed frame, exhaustion pulling at his limbs.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. Pansy's cries softened, hiccups ripping the rough sobs in many places. "You're right. I guess I've been a bit...withdrawn recently."

Her back jumped with tears again. "F-f-for more than a m-m-month," she gasped.

He felt a sudden tenderness towards her curled form, sunk deep into the mattress, and sat down beside her, gathering her weak body into his arms. He sat there in silence, cupping her tears and snot in his palm, his face buried in her hair. She smelled like stale alcohol, he noticed, and ran a hand softly down her arm. Deep crevices marked her wrist, where gnawed nails gripped in insatiable fury. Had he been away this long, separated himself so completely from the people that most mattered? "Oh God, Pansy," he breathed, "I'm sorry."

Many minutes passed before she answered. She quieted in his arms, eyelids drooping with the warmth of his body. Waves of sweaty alcohol trickled down her skin, cleansing her drunken system. "'S okay," she murmured. "It will all be okay."

"I hope so," Draco whispered. He looked up, wondering whether the Fates watched him now. "I hope so."

* * *

Harry and Ron bent their heads over their Charms homework, exchanging a whispered conversation hidden from the ears of Hermione.

"I dunno, mate, she just seems a bit off. Ill or something," Ron muttered. He cast another look at Hermione, in an armchair not far away, stroking Crookshanks and staring at her feet. Her skin seemed thin and brittle, pale with stretched anxiety. Her hair, so usually wild in rebellion to all combs, brushes, and Sleazy's Sleak Oil, fell in a limp slump to her shoulders.

Harry followed his gaze and frowned. It was true: Hermione was not herself. She had no parchment spread upon her lap, no quill behind her ear, no book propped before her nose. Everything that made her Hermione had receded, replaced by chewed lips and sunken eyes. "I haven't seen her this bad since Third Year, when she was taking that insane number of classes," Harry agreed. "But even then, she was actually doing work."

"She just sits there now," Ron said.

Both of them stared hard at the blank paper in front of them. Ron couldn't imagine anything so grave that it ate one from the inside out. She would tell him, he told himself, she would tell him if anything was really wrong. She had kept secrets from him and Harry before, but nothing _serious_. Well, nothing more serious than the Time Turner, anyways, but that had been on a teacher's instructions.

"You noticed she hasn't been at lunch, right?" Harry said, thinking along the same lines Ron had been.

Ron shot him a dirty look, reminding Harry that Hermione had been in _his _arms at the Masquerade, that he rarely took his eyes off her. "I figured she was in the Library. It's not like the lunch vanishing acts are anything new," he said.

"But usually we know something about what she's doing," Harry whispered. "We at least know a bit about what's going on. She hasn't said a word about anything this time."

Ron shrugged. "Maybe it's the holiday."

They both worked in silence for a time, but Ron's quill hardly moved. He tapped his fingers nervously on the table, shifted his knees until the springs beneath the couch squeaked. Finally, he rolled up the parchment and threw down his quill. "I'm going to talk to her," he told Harry.

Harry nodded. Ron waited.

"I mean, _talk-_to-her talking to her." Harry continued writing. "As in, a _private_ conversation."

Harry looked up. "Yeah, so?"

"Just leave, will you? I want to do this alone."

Harry's green eyes brightened in understanding. He didn't argue that Hermione was sitting far enough away that he wouldn't be able to hear a word of their dialogue anyways, but simply collected his stuff hurriedly. He grinned at Ron, and, emitting several loud and obnoxious yawns, strolled towards the bottom of the staircase. "G'night, Hermione," he said. "I'm off – I'm exhausted."

Hermione bid him goodnight without looking up.

"Good luck, mate," Harry mouthed to Ron, and walked briskly out of sight.

Ron twisted his hands nervously; now that he made the commitment, he found himself less sure of what he was supposed to do. He gazed at her from the couch, his joints momentarily rusted in self-doubt. His tongue felt swollen and clumsy in his mouth – what the hell was he going supposed to say anyways?

_Just do it,_ he told himself firmly.

And he did.

"Hermione," he said uncertainly. He stood behind the back of her chair, hands shoved in the pockets of his robe. He cleared his throat and repeated a little louder, "Hermione."

"For goodness' sake, Ronald, come around where I can see you," Hermione said.

He winced at his full name, but couldn't help but feel heartened. This, at least, sounded more like the old Hermione. He crouched by her knee, and played with the fraying fabric lining the bottom of chair. He nervously looked up into her face, fingers still absently pulling blue threads. She smiled vaguely at the area above his head. "Listen," he said, "we – I mean, me – well, Harry too – but mostlyme –"

"Yes?"

Ron took a deep breath. "Hermione, I'm worried about you. You haven't been acting like yourself."

Hermione met his eyes, alarm sharp in her gaze. "What do you mean?" she asked.

Ron suppressed a grin of triumph at his connection. "It's just that you've been...well, _distant_. You disappear at lunch, and sit there at night. I haven't even seen you do your homework."

"I haven't been forgetting my homework, Ron."

"But you've been weird the last month," he insisted. "I just want to know what's going on."

Hermione looked down at her lap. She laced her fingers together, gripping them tightly together, strangling the guilt in her veins. "I've been thinking," she said simply. She smiled at him reassuringly, and she cursed herself. "I'm sorry, Ron. I didn't mean to shut myself off or anything, it's just that... I'll try to do better."

Ron tentatively placed his hand on her knee. Hermione automatically shifted her leg, and the fingers slid to the floor. He took no notice of this, but stood with the intention of joining Harry in the dormitories. "Can you tell me what you were thinking about?" he asked, almost as an afterthought.

Hermione shook her head. "Maybe later."

Ron bent close to her, lips brushing her cheek. He hastily straightened, his face pulsing a deeper red than his hair, and strode away.

_Victory!_ he grinned to himself, and whistled tunelessly as he jogged up the stairs to Harry.

* * *

When Hermione next opened her eyes, she was met by the shadows of rows upon rows of books. She looked over her shoulder, mouth gaping wide, and saw the door to the Library swinging shut on her heels. Her handprint slowly faded from the glass window in the center of the door.

She grasped a candle from the scones in the wall, its faint aura illuminating the tables skulking against the shelves. She should have been unsurprised to be here, she knew, and yet couldn't quite get over the apprehension spreading through her cold veins.

In the far corner, the light alighted on a pale figure whose form she knew perhaps too well. She sighed, and knowing full well why she was sent there, when the hands of the clock skulked upright, walked gingerly towards the table. He was asleep, mouth slightly open as he breathed deeply. Hermione set the candle down and sat down beside him. Beneath his eyelids, the swell of his irises swerved from side to side. He was uneasy in dream.

Her fingers grazed a purple bruise just beneath his cheekbone, senses trembling in rebellion against her clearer judgment, hesitating before she snatched her hand away. "Draco," she whispered. His name stumbled off her tongue. "Draco," she repeated, shaking his arm. "Wake up."

He raised his head, then sat up hastily as he realized where he was. "Sorry," he murmured. "I haven't slept in a long time."

"I know what you mean." The words rested between them. She leaned back in her chair, studying the ceiling. Webs of darkness lowered strings of ghosts and nightmares towards her upturned eyes. She looked away hastily, and found instead the candle warriors burning bright on the wall. "Listen," she said hesitantly, "I think that this Fate thing has gone too far. It's taking over my life. I haven't slept well in weeks, I'm falling back on my studies, I'm ignoring my friends – I can't go on like this."

Draco twitched. He flexed his palms in what he hoped was an unconcerned matter and said, "Then stop thinking about it. Just live like you never knew about it. Act normally."

Hermione stared at him. "You mean it doesn't bother you? It doesn't bother you that we're slaves, that we have no _choice_?"

Draco shrugged. "Not especially."

She didn't mention that she could hear the tremor in his voice, the fear and the lie that lay heavy in his words. Hermione sighed. "Well, I can't go back now that I know. It's not the kind of thing you can forget."

There was quiet. After a moment, he said, "Think of it this way: The Fates can't be watching us every second of every day. There are moments when we're outside their control. They _planned _our life, but didn't add every little detail in. So, yes, there's a deliberate progression and a definite end – a fate – but some choices are still in our control. I doubt that the Fates choose what color clothes you put on each morning, for example."

"That makes sense." He noted with some pleasure that her tone was lighter, more vibrant. It rapidly grew in hope as she continued to convince herself, "They plan our direction. It means we have purpose, that's all."

Her eyes swept the table in relief; a loose scrap of parchment scuttled across the table in the stillness, rocking on the edge for the moment before its courage sprang through the black space, towing ink and paper behind. She caught sight of the book that had started the entire incident, a book she wasn't quite sure she was grateful to or she hated. "Speaking of purposes," she said, "I don't think you ever told me why you picked out this particular book. What were _your _reasons for taking it? I don't think we'll ever know what the Fates' were."

Draco pulled the volume towards him, and regarded the title – Myths You Thought Weren't Real: True Stories About God and Fate – impassively for a moment. "I was trying to figure out what the Dark Lord was up to," he said finally. "The day before I was supposed to catch the train, I overheard my father talking in his study. I could only hear parts of the conversation – I still don't know who he was talking to – but I thought maybe I could figure out my father's instructions."

"Did you?"

"No, of course not. Do you honestly think I'd still be sitting here?"

Hermione shook her head and smiled at her foolishness. "Oh, you would have gone to tell Dumbledore immediately."

"I would have been helping them."

The crevices around her mouth deepened. She did not find the truth in the statement, but he did not mind. It was important to keep his loyalties hidden, at least until he understood them himself. "Well, what did you hear?" she prompted.

Draco hesitated. They were in this together, after all. Besides, if he couldn't figure it out – a son of a prominent Death Eater, a Slytherin brimming with perception – it was doubtful she could. "I heard that my father was to go on a mission, and that it had something to do with a legend. It was something only he could do. He had to carry a knife, an everburning lantern, and know a number of really Dark incantations. I don't know what they were for, though; I couldn't read them. I know, it doesn't sound like much, but--"

"I know what he's doing," Hermione said. Draco stared at her. She smiled slightly at his expression of disbelief. "He's Sensing. I don't know what they're looking for, though. I haven't quite worked it out yet."

"Who's 'they'?" Draco interjected.

"Your father and Wormtail – I mean, Pettigrew. In any case, it's also one of the reasons I took the book."

She laid a blue volume on the table between them, where the word "Sense" flickered in the candlelight.

"How—how do you know?"

"Never you mind," she said. She studied the cover, deep in thought. The blue was cold, she thought, and unforgiving. It was the color of the space between wrong and right, the line that swayed on the edge of rule-constricted and having none. "Hold on... I have an idea. I mean, it might not work, but—" She turned to Draco. "You say that these are Voldemort's instructions?"  
"I assume so. I didn't hear the other man speak – it was like my father was talking on one of those things Muggles use instead of Floo Powder. You know, the black rods that attach to the wall?"

"A telephone?"

"Probably. So I could only hear my father's part of the conversation."

"I wonder..." Her voice trailed into silence, broken only by the rhythm of her fingers against the cover. The clock above an abandoned desk ticked once, twice, thrice, and then was still. Draco watched, impatience invisible in the shadows. Finally, Hermione stirred, her eyes turning to his in the glow of possibility. "I think I know of who might be able to tell us what they're up to," she said. "Do you remember when I left earlier this year?"

"Your mum died."

She closed her eyelids briefly, shivering in the cold toll of the words. "Yes, that's right. I don't suppose you know how she was killed – I don't think I've even told Harry or Ron." Draco shook his head. "Voldemort killed her in a Muggle attack."

Draco shrugged, but quickly turned it into a shoulder-shaking cough that echoed off the leathered walls. "I'm sorry. Still, he does do those often. I can't say it's anything new."

"Yes, but has he ever tortured thirty Muggles all in one blow? Thirty Muggles, just that one day. He had killed fifty the week before that, according to the _Daily Prophet. _It's never been that bad before, not even sixteen years ago before he was first defeated. It's my guess that these numbers mean something, that he's planning something with the Muggles – or their bodies. And it's more than extermination."

She leaned forward, lowering her voice to a whisper. "Dumbledore told me that eight of the Muggles survived the riot, but most died hours later in St. Mungo's. My mum was one of the last three, but I bet that at least one of them lived through that night. I thought maybe we could find one of the survivors, and see if any of the Death Eaters slipped and gave them a clue about what they were planning to do."

It was likely, Draco reflected. In triumph, many did not remember caution. The drum in their ears and the blood in their veins drowned all tastes but the bitter laughter of superiority. Too many times, he had done the same, and too many times, he had suffered. "So, when do we leave?" he asked.

Hermione beamed. The candle warriors stretched high, smiling and bowing as the defeated darkness applauded reluctantly. "Soon, I hope. We've got to get permission first, of course, and that may take awhile—"

"Permission?" Draco echoed. "We can't tell anyone about this, are you crazy?" Hermione stopped speaking, her mouth yawning wide in disbelief. "You can't expect us just to walk out of Hogwarts, no questions asked!"

"I most certainly do." Hermione shoved back her chair, and gathered Sense to her chest.

"Oh, come on, Hermione," he pleaded. "If we tell anyone, they'll just ask a bunch of awkward questions. I know you don't want to be discovered with that book. And none of the teachers trust me, they'll just think I'm trying to go talk the Dark Lord or something else ridiculous."

Hermione walked briskly towards the door, leaving his arguments echoing in the disapproval of her footsteps. At the door, she paused. "I'm sorry, Draco," she said softly. "But even Voldemort's not worth expulsion."

* * *

The fetus stared at and through Lucius Malfoy, who stood caught in the stillness that radiated from the unborn. Wormtail cowered behind him, and whispered moans and curses that tangled in the blue veins that fed the womb. The sound snagged on the branches of blood, and hissed slowly to silence as the veins strangled the words to nothingness. It was a cathedral, Wormtail muttered, a place sacred and untouchable. He was afraid his every footprint would bleed destruction, that the taut walls would crumble and bury him under heavy flesh.

"Why am I here?" he asked the floor over and over. And over and over, the plea choked in the tender arms of blood, of time. Wormtail moaned and cradled his heart, rocking it in frenzy.

Malfoy turned to him. "You are here because the Dark Lord commanded it. You may not be loyal, Pettigrew, but you have your uses. Now get up, you imbecile; we have work to do."

Malfoy circled the dip where Hermione lay, hidden behind the bulk of the fetus. "My master did not say how to reach the next stage," he muttered, rubbing his left forearm, eyes creased in thought. He pulled up the sleeve as if hoping the answer would be scarred upon his pale skin, but only a skull stared up at him, impassive and immovable. He thought out loud, murmurings dropping unheard in the dead air: "Blood. I need blood and an incantation. But where to make the cut?"

His eyes hardened, an understanding shielding his intentions. He stretched his hand forward. "Pettigrew. The knife."

* * *

**A/N: **Another long chapter for you wonderful readers! You guys really made my day this last chapter – the reviews were just beautiful. Thank you so much for taking the time to read the fic and write about it. It makes the process that much more enjoyable.

On another note, this may be the last chapter for awhile. This week finished the finals time, and is to be followed by nine glorious weeks of summer vacation. I'm going to try my best to update at least once this summer, but plan to spend a lot of the time getting ahead on future chapters. That way when I get back from break, I can update every two weeks, no exceptions. In any case, we'll have the real Harry Potter July 16th, right?

So, a bunch of one-hundred percent genuine thank-you's to deliver before a long break:

**StarAngel Caelum SunSoar**Hey, darlin'! Thank you so much for your kind words, they sent this heart a-beatin'! Sorry for the long wait (Finals are picking up – the end of the year approaches!), but I hope this chapter satisfied. You said you got confused a few times, right? Feel free to drop a question or two to clarify – I know this story is pretty confusing. Let's see if I can do a quick summary for you first, though: The Fates control all life – which direction it goes in, when and how people meet. They do most of this through "puppets," where each person is a marionette to be jerked around at will. However, as in the case of Hermione and Draco, they can literally step into a person's body, and gets some hands-on control. Now, we don't know why the Fates are doing this to Draco and Hermione, but as illustrated in the first part of every chapter (with Snake and the Fates), we know it was ordered by Snake. What this has to do with his plan, however, we'll soon find out. The fuss last chapter was related to Hermione's realization that all life is controlled, that every choice she made was already made for her. Her future course is set, and she can't change the path she was put upon. There's no way to break free from them. Does that help at all? Let me know if it doesn't, and I'll try to answer any questions. Cheers, my dear!

**Sirius: **Ello! Fabulous questions, my friend – I'll try my best to answer them without giving away the whole plot (heh heh, as a "sneaky devil," it goes against my nature). So, the deal with Snake – we don't quite know the entire workings of his plan, but we do know that his destiny is to destroy the human race. He doesn't need to kill the Fates because he's already stronger than them – he conquered them in an early chapter. It would be senseless and unnecessary. So with Draco and Herms (how they fit in the plan, why their strings were switched, etc.), we actually don't know yet. We don't even know whether it's really them in the fire; I'll leave you to figure that out. We do know, however, that the Fates are taking an interest in them, most likely on Snake's instructions. Onto the Dream sequences: you actually touched upon some really good points there. I know the Dream stuff is confusing, but the basic idea is that Hermione is "Dreaming" a journey of Lucius and Wormtail (as a Dreamer, she just watches but can't actually _do_ anything – like touch or make a noise). Up until this last chapter, we didn't even know if it was truly occurring, but she just figured out that Lucius is Sensing – the art of seeing the way the world works. It's almost as if there is a universe hidden behind the life and world we knows, one that could almost be considered metaphoric. There's a Heart that pumps Time (the blood stream), a Womb where Life was born (that Fetus could even be called Life itself). As for Hermione's memory, I'll be getting to that fairly soon. She does remember it, but she hasn't figured out what that means for her. It will all be explained, my dear – trust me. Please, if you have any more questions, feel free to ask! Thank you so much for you thoughts.

**Jiinx: **Wow! (Blushes fiercely) Thank you so much, love! I feel so honored to have gotten such a review, really. It completely made my day, week, month, etc. And the metaphor (of the dark chocolate) was perfect. That atmosphere was exactly what I was going for – the bitterness especially. The story will have a happy ending, but in the meantime, the dark chocolate taste is so much fun to explore! Ah, the beauty of angst and darkness... I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this latest chapter – it's a bit different from the others.

**Lady11Occult: **Actually, when I wrote the fic, I was going for the "different" theme. It was a point I struggled with, trying to find an interesting way to bring Draco and Hermione together. It's been fun to develop though, even if it is a bit...complicated. So you say you don't know where it's headed? Not at all? Heh heh...probably just as well. I'll probably run in the opposite direction. (Bad habit of mine, if you know what I mean.) So, my darling, what do you think of this latest chapter? I can't wait to hear from you! (You think of any theories about how this is going to end, I'd be interested to hear them. Questions, too. Questions are always good.)

**Prin69: **Ah, I know what you mean about life spinning out of control. Yes, that's exactly what I'm experiencing right now, as a matter of fact. No worries about missing a chapter, though – I'm just thrilled to hear from you! So, the idea of life planned out, the journey set before our feet, creeped you out a bit, eh? It freaks me out, too. Actually, one of the ideas of this fic is to examine religion – because a lot of time, that's exactly what religion tells us. Well, not quite – this is dealing more with destiny, but religion does say that we'll be judged for all our actions. In the end, there's a set ending point, determined in a way that's out of our control. In any case, I'm glad I made you think, for that's the first goal of the story. I'm so excited to know that I reached it with you. I look forward to hearing any new thoughts about this latest chapter.

**Ally: **Yay, you're here (huge, HUGE hug)! I was so happy to hear from you! (Sorry I've left off emailing, by the way. I deleted your latest by accident, but I plan on chatting with you as soon as I can post. Life has just been a whirlwind recently – no time whatsoever.) So, darling, what did you think? I was actually really glad that you could see Draco's and Herms' relationship evolving – you're quite right to say it's fragile. Got a ways to go, I think, before it can ever truly become something more than a simple attraction. Draco and Hermione just keep messing it up for each other – every time they take a step forward, the other pulls them back to base one. I think neither can quite get over their mistrust of the other. So, review when you've got the time, as always. I hope that things have slowed down and looked up a bit since our last talk. I hope to chat with you soon, m'love! Many hugs and even more kisses to you.

**Slyswn: **So you could feel some feelings blossoming, could you? Excellent...my master plan is working (laughs in a disturbingly sinister way). But, my friend, don't get optimistic too fast – they've got a ways to go, unfortunately. Hermione didn't come off looking too good in this last chapter. Still, it's perhaps becoming more than friendship, delicate as it may be. They're fate lies together, as we know. (Hah! What a clever pun! What? You don't think it's funny? C'mon, that's me at my best right there...) Well, I hope that life isn't treating you too roughly, though 'tis the season for things to swing out of control. Much love to you, sweets!

**Draco: **Well, hello, my dear! I hope this chapter sufficed, and am so glad that you liked the story. I know I've responded to your review once already, so I'll try not to be overly repetitive. Actually, I have a question about your review: "I really like it despite my entire disconnection with power hunger." So does that mean that the Draco in this story isn't portrayed as power hungry? Enh, I suppose not. Then again, he hasn't gotten much of a chance to be ambitious. I'm afraid he probably won't be, either, unless I can figure out a good situation to work that in... Hm, you've given me food for thought, my friend. That'd be interesting to play with. I hope to hear from you soon!

**Lorett: **Words fail me. When I got that review, I turned to my dad and said, "This is an amazing woman." I've never received such a well-thought-out and (almost) accurate review! Well, unless you don't count the one for chapter 9... So no pressure to slap another one of these on the table, because I'd just be content to go to the grave with those two. Right, so I suppose you want some answers. Sigh...you can be so demanding! I'll try my best to answer without giving the whole plot away (though I have a sneaking suspicion you might already know it all – my story notes are missing). Actually, there's not much to answer (you've done it all for me) – check! for the final weapon (you heard that right), check! for Hermione's revelation, check! for Draco's blundering attempts towards friendship. Concerning attempts for friendship, I actually have a slightly different interpretation than that which you gleaned from it. I think that Draco's sabotage is simply a sign of lingering mistrust. Too much has gone on too long for him to drop it at the first opportunity. Hence the lame excuse, "I'll be embarrassed." That's just Draco trying to rationalize the friendship in his own mind, slowing down the progress so he doesn't bite of too much too fast. Now, whether he is actually thinking that or not, that's different. He probably does believe he's ashamed of the friendship, but his subconscious motives are much nicer. Hm, what else did you say? You said someone is watching our twosome...I'm going to let that slide without comment. You'll see! And your final point...cookies to Lorett for the question of the day! That was _exactly_ what I was getting at. The giant fetus what kind of new life? I don't know if you picked up on it, but it's sustained with veins of Time (the blood flow was incased by veins, which ran to the fetus). So it could possibly be considered_ all_ life, feeding on time and prospering. Not quite a new lifeform (yet?)... Have you figured out the metaphorical map of Sensing yet? First, the Heart, sanctuary of time; second, the Womb, home of life...where to next, eh? Ah, most looking forward to your review, my dear. (I was so glad to see you updated, darlin'! I'm heading over to review right now...I was wondering when the next chapter of KEYS was going to be put up.) Cheers, tons of chocolate, and more kisses than you could count!

**Niah: **(Grabs the knife away from you) Didn't your mother tell you not to play with knives, young lady? Huh, and give me those matches, too. Tsk, you poor dear. I hope that life's looking up a bit from soon-to-be (if not already) summer. Anywho, so glad to see you're back! And as for the words...they don't ALWAYS flow out "like that." It can sometimes take a bit of pushing...fine, more than a bit. But only sometimes! What? Stop looking at me like that! Okay, for example, this chapter turned out to be harder than most. I meant to have it up earlier (as in, two weeks ago), but the Pansy/Draco scene took two tries to get it right. And then, Herms'/Draco's conversation in the Library took awhile, too. Then again, I don't know whether it was because I couldn't find the words or procrastination. But thank you for the compliment anyways! Have a fabulous day today, darlin', you hear? No if's, and's or but's. And that's final. Cheers, and can't wait to hear from you! (Oh, and of course you can call me Alison.)

**Unspeakable May: **Hey, darlin'! Thanks so much for your review – I couldn't tell you weren't a native English speaker, really. As you said, I do sort of stress religion and philosophy, simply because it's what I'm interested in exploring right now. I'm not committed to a religion yet, and am just seizing the opportunity as a chance to experiment. Work out all the bad points and the good points for myself. I hope to hear from you soon, my dear!

**Fiona McKinnon: **Heh, sorry for the long wait, my dear...life's been a bit crazy. I'm glad you like my story so far, though – it's been so much fun to write! It's the greatest gift an author can have to have readers like you, who appear to enjoy reading it almost as much as the author does writing it. So thank you for that. And I see that you, like others, aren't quite sure of where it's headed. Heh heh...THE PLAN IS MINE! ALL MINE! (No, that means leave the story notes – no! Drop them! Bad girl!) Well, if you find yourself confused, please ask questions! I was thrilled to hear from you, darlin', and hope to hear from you again!

**Minty: **Heya, love! You came back! I'm so happy to see you! So...I heard through the grapevine you think the story is building up, eh? Well, my dear, you haven't seen anything yet! We're about halfway through, if that, and the excitement hasn't even started. You should have an idea about what these next couple chapters are going to deal with though (in the most general of terms, of course). Ah, this interlude is almost over – then, phase two! And no, can't tell you what that is either, as much as I adore you. Which is actually why I do individual responses (I also love it when authors do it, it makes the relationship between author and reviewer a wee bit more "personal," so to speak) – I personally think that if a person takes the time to read a story and review it, then the least the author can do is answer their questions. It's common courtesy, and works both ways. Cheers, my love! Waitin' eagerly for your thoughts!

**Accio: **(Runs over and gives you a BIG hug – smack, smack!) Yay! You made it! Whee! Oh, happy day, my love, happy day! Oh, and what a glorious review to return to, as well. Let's see if I can answer some of these thoughts you posed...So, starting with the Fates: Yes and no. I think you may be the first to connect the Fates with Draco and Hermione, meaning that you are able to guess a bit about what the pair is doing resulting from the Fates (brilliant, my dear, brilliant! Just what I was hoping for). But no, the two don't quite happen in the same time block – well, they do to an extent. I think that time is slightly different for the Fates, remember how at the beginning, the Fates were just lighting their fire, receiving their puppet strings? I guess I've sort of planned the Fates as living all times simultaneously: the past and the present and the future all at once. So yes, as that Fate scene takes place, the effects soon (if not immediately) come to pass in the real world, but the Fates themselves aren't in the same 'time pattern,' as Hermione once referred to it. The blood (time) doesn't flow at quite the same rate around them as it does for humans. Now, as for your query about Cruelty (born to betray)...I could start a philosophical debate that would last forever. You wondered whether we were all made to betray, if every human relation begins with passion and ends with cruelty. Obviously, I can't answer that, but personally, I think not. It's not truly betrayal, though it causes another pain – it's not betrayal until one betrays him or herself. Only when you turn your back on your desires and your beliefs, when you bow to another's tears or rage or pleas, that is cruelty. Of course, that's not the stance I'm going to take here, I think, but that's what I believe. Right, onto the fall from imagination: believe me, I was disappointed, too. It's why I had the dance in there, actually, so I could break their characters for awhile and create a world different from the one J.K. Rowling made, which I am borrowing. Sigh. Too bad it was only one chapter. Things will start to pick up again in a chapter or two, though (if all goes well, the next chapter will be the last one with mostly talking), and we'll soon forget all about the fall. I promise. Oh, and before I leave (it's almost midnight, I'm afraid), I LOVED your interpretation of Draco. Cold and bitter, you say...I like the sound of it. Who knows if that's the way it will end – I'm not even entirely sure who these characters are every single moment. It's the kind of thing I don't know until I read back over it, for when I write it, I'm caught up by instinct and imagination. Not until reflection is there meaning, that kind of thing. So, hugs, dearest, and drop by when you can – it'll be a good long wait before an update, I think, so no rush! (And I mean it this time, I really do.) Much love!

**To everyone who's reading but not reviewing: thanks for stopping by. If you've got any questions or comments (I know this is a confusing story), please don't hesitate to drop a line. I'll do my best to answer.**

Alison


	12. Words

**Disclaimer: **As per usual.

**A/N: **Well, a new year begins! School has begun for those of us still learning, and a new era has rolled around for all of us fans, regardless of age. I will, of course, be ignoring all events in the Half-Blood Prince for convenience's sake. (Some read, huh?) I hope it's not too big of a shock to be pulled back into this other universe, where things are still going the way we want it to, at least most of the time. _I know it's been awhile, so at least read the recap if you don't want or don't have the time to skim the last chapter._

**To recap**: Cruelty stands at the fire, ready to control her puppets (though her assigned task from Snake has neither been revealed nor completed); Lucius Malfoy and Wormtail are prepared to go to the next stage in Sensing, but must cut their way out. Pansy's bitter about Draco spending so little time with her; Ron is taking small and silly steps to win Hermione over with innocent Harry by his side. Draco and Hermione are going through a spat: they both want to discover Voldemort's plans (specifically what Lucius Malfoy and Wormtail are up to), though for very different and selfish reasons: Hermione wants to know what her "dreams," or visions rather, mean; Draco simply wants to know what his father is doing, though what he will do with the information is still ambiguous. You'll find more about their reasons later on. The controversy lies in how they want to go about completing the task of collecting the information: They must visit the surviving victim at St. Mungo's, but Hermione refuses to leave without permission and Draco refuses to tell. And the winner? Who knows?

* * *

_Last Time — _

"Dumbledore told me that eight of the Muggles survived the riot, but most died hours later in St. Mungo's. My mum was one of the last three, and I'll bet that at least one of them lived through that night. I thought maybe we could find one of the survivors, and see if any of the Death Eaters slipped and gave them a clue about what they were planning to do."

It was likely, Draco reflected. In triumph, many did not remember caution. The drum in their ears and the blood in their veins drowned all tastes but the bitter laughter of superiority. Too many times he had done the same, and too many times he had suffered. "So, when do we leave?" he asked.

Hermione gave a small smile. A moment passed. It almost seemed to Draco that her gaze paled, that it wavered desperately, and then, "Soon, I hope. We've got to get permission first, of course, and that may take awhile—"

"Permission?" Draco echoed. "We can't tell anyone about this, are you crazy?" Hermione stopped speaking, her mouth yawning wide in disbelief. "Teachers will want to know why we want to go, they'll want to know how we know all this. We're not supposed to know about Sensing, and we're definitely not supposed to be able to put two and two together. What makes you think they'll let us go? They'll just look at us over their noses and tell us to forget about like good little boys and girls, and let the grown-ups deal with it. You can't expect us just to walk out of Hogwarts, no questions asked!"

"I most certainly do." Hermione shoved back her chair, and gathered Sense to her chest.

"Oh, come on, Hermione," he pleaded. "I know you don't want to be discovered with that book. Few of the teachers trust me, they'll just think I'm trying to go talk to the Dark Lord or something else equally ridiculous."

Hermione walked briskly towards the door, leaving his arguments echoing in the disapproval of her footsteps. At the door, she paused. "I'm sorry, Draco," she said softly. "But even Voldemort's not worth expulsion."

* * *

_Chapter 12 – Words_

Age and Innocence knelt sullenly in the corner, their puppets lying mangled and forgotten at the edge of the fire. Their eyes were lit with greed, with hope, with despair. Forever they were shunted aside, hidden in their sisters' shadows. The broad light of the orange flames rarely shined through the cloaks of twisted glory and triumph that cascaded from their sisters' shoulders.

Still, the ice of their misery – blue and treacherous – could never match that of Cruelty's. Her ambition could never be dissolved, even now in her moment of greatest victory. Her shadow stretched long over the flames, her fingers tamed the puppets with furious caresses. Overhead, a thick bolt of lightning thrashed to the ground, illuminating the world in white and black and red. In that brief moment, she turned her head, face bent towards the clouds. She sniffed – she could smell the temptation of a greater power, the scent a palpable smoke hovering just above her stooped form.

She snapped her eyes to the right, where the forest howled in bitter distress as the wind bit branches and twigs, throwing them to the earth. To the left, she saw the cold moor stretch in blond distance, grasses straining to grow, to hide, to lie in stillness. And there, as she looked to the center, the smell grew sharp and distinct in her nostrils:

Snake. Fire. Knife.

Cruelty smiled. A plan sprung from the darkness, wrapped the warm tentacles of an idea about her wizened mind.

* * *

Draco sat in silence as the door swung closed, shock flowing through every hair and nail on his body. He quivered with frustration and indignation and disbelief. How could she? How _could_ she, one of the brighter students in the school, fail to recognize the importance of this mission? The irony settled around his shoulders, and his head dropped to the table.

Disappointment welled in the dips of his eyes.

He wasn't exactly sure why this was the pebble that tipped the balance, only that he hurt. The pain throbbed deep in his gut, twisting his face and slapping his cheeks until they became red with the blood that flushed to the surface. Self-doubt, a luxury he denied himself so fully and completely, broke the surface and poured into the marrow of his bones. It would not fade for many days.

He wondered how he could betray so many in a single night: himself, Pansy. He wondered at Pansy, simple and confounded at the complexity of the human being, and couldn't understand how she found forgiveness. He wouldn't have forgiven her, he knew, if she had done such a thing to him.

_Devotion is a gift, _he could hear his mother whisper. He turned his head, surprised, tears still settling in the crook of his elbow. _You never learned it. I thought I knew it, but even now my love for your father wavers. Devotion is never to be abused, Draco. Never. I am ashamed that there is little room for dedication in you; you are more like your father with every passing year. You are shrewd and ambitious, but I hope that those softer moments I see in you become more than memory, that true compassion is preserved. It is not weakness, remember this above all else. I have little left. I love him with all my heart, but this absolute love pushed out kindness. I hope to God you remember yours..._

Her voice faded. He felt, in the corners of his mind, his picture being set down on the mantle, his mother's hands and thoughts moving away from him. To his father, where those thoughts belonged. The tears came more swiftly now, and he cried silently until light broke over the windowsill. He looked up at the warm brilliance. He wiped his face with his sleeve, and slipped out of the Library.

The door clicked, and his footsteps echoed in the finality that followed.

* * *

Hermione bent low over her Arithmancy problem, biting her lip in concentration. Her quill carefully scratched the numbers on the parchment as she multiplied, divided, and multiplied again in repetitious certainty. Her fingers trembled as her conscience murmured doubt in her ears, threatening and baiting and biting. She screwed up her eyes in a momentous effort to throw the voice out of her mind completely. It didn't work.

She sighed and threw down her pen, twisting quickly in her seat to face Draco. He didn't bother to pretend innocence but looked her squarely in the eye. He accused her, he insulted her, he insisted that it was her fault, all within one imperial glance. Then, then he lowered his quill to paper and insolently began to work.

"Stop it," Hermione hissed furiously. She snatched the quill from his hand and threw it aside. Draco lazily reached for it, drowning her voice in the thin scrape of the point on paper. "_Stop it. _It's getting ridiculous. I understand you're angry with me, and I know you think I'm wrong. But this–this _hissing_ isn't working. I'm not going to change my opinion because of a bunch of stupid threats."

Draco looked up. "It's not working?" he repeated. "No, I think it is. You're talking to me, aren't you?"

"I was never the one who didn't want to talk! You avoided me for weeks, Draco—"

"I _told_ you not to call me that outside the Library," he interrupted, twisting in his seat. There was almost panic in his voice.

"I've tried to explain myself, to make you understand," Hermione continued, unheeding, "but you walked away every time I came close."

"I don't want to hear why you refuse to help me. I know enough already, and it disgusts me. Now turn around, Granger. I'm trying to work."

"I won't turn around! I want to make my say. Just listen to me for once, Draco, just once. I can't help you, I can't. It's more than just breaking rules – I've done it before, when it's truly important. I can't help you becau—"

Draco threw up his hand. "Professor Vector!" he said loudly. "Granger is disturbing me. I've asked her to get back to her own problem, but she's refusing to move."

Professor Vector paused in his slow journey between the desks. "Miss Granger," he said reprovingly, "you should know better. Mister Malfoy is entitled to his personal space. Please turn around."

Hermione shot Draco a disgusted look, and returned reluctantly to her work. As her quill resumed its ink path, a slow barrage of whispers began again the siege on her composure.

She waited until his pale head had disappeared beyond the classroom door before she followed. Books stuffed haphazardly in her bag, she jogged after his slight form as it wove between the black-cloaked students. She wasn't entirely sure of her plan, only that she felt the drumming need to talk to him, the need to explain herself. She would force him to listen this time, even if it was at wand-point.

Draco walked briskly down the corridor, turning right down a long staircase that led down to the dungeons. Everyone else would be at lunch, she knew, and tried to imagine why he'd skip one of the few social periods of the day. Unless it was to avoid her, she thought. She smiled.

Her question was answered abruptly. He stepped off the final stair, his feet loud on the cold stones, and looked furtively around. Hermione threw herself against the wall, wishing desperately she had Harry's Invisibility Cloak. With a shout, a small figure ran towards him from another direction and clasped hands around Draco's neck. Their heads bent close together, merging into a two-bodied being for a long moment, then broke apart to walk hand-in-hand towards an empty room. Laughter drifted feather-light to her ears.

Hermione fingered her Prefect badge longingly. She knew that detention would do nothing to ease the rift in their friendship, if she could have called it that, but the sweet feeling of revenge would almost be worth it. She sighed sadly, her fingers fell quiet to her side, and tugged her cloak tighter around her, then cautiously followed the couple towards the classroom.

She rounded the corner in time to see a door close, and heard the sucking noise of a sealing charm seconds after it. She knelt by the keyhole, hoping to see anything that would suggest how to proceed, but the room was dark and unfathomable. As she drew her eye away, she heard a muttered silencing charm, and all sounds ceased. She resigned herself to a long wait outside the door, and sat down feeling slightly ill.

It was easily a half-hour before sound returned to the classroom. Hermione leapt up, stationing herself to the right of the door where they hopefully wouldn't see her until too late. She heard the low murmur of Draco's voice and the soft, high response. They both laughed quietly, and approached the door.

"_Alohomora_," Draco whispered.

Pansy filed out of the room first, smiling gently back at Draco. Hermione felt the bile rise at the sight of her pug-nosed face, but managed to stay silent and still. Draco rested a hand on Pansy's waist, steering her out of the room and towards the Great Hall to rejoin the other students. They paused in front of the open door, faces bending towards each other, eyes closed, when Hermione stepped forward.

"Draco," she said. "Please."

The couple started. Pansy looked at her with contempt; silver eyes stared at her with something close to wonder. They broke apart, though Pansy kept her hand possessively on Draco's elbow.

"What do you want, Mudblood?" Pansy asked, cruelty sharp in her voice.

Hermione flinched at the word, but kept her gaze resolutely on the pale boy in front of her. "Draco," she said again. Her voice rose higher. "It's important."

Pansy looked up at him, a question in her eyes. Draco did not move. Her hand crept to his cheek, trying to bring his attention back to her. "Draco, what does this stupid Muggle want—"

"Fine," Draco said suddenly, and broke from Pansy's grip. He gestured to the classroom, mocking Hermione forward with a slight bow. She held her head high and stepped inside the room, lighting the floating candles with a vague wave of her wand. Draco followed her inside and closed the door, ignoring Pansy's reaching hands and his name bitter in her mouth.

Pansy looked at the wood, feeling lost.

Inside the classroom, Draco leaned against the door. Hermione stared around the classroom uncomfortably, almost wishing she hadn't attracted his attention. Draco stared at her intently, waiting.

"Talk," he said finally.

She took a deep breath. "Okay. I know that you must not like me very much right now. I suppose I should have made myself clearer, back in the Library. But you have to understand that this is difficult for me. This confession, I mean." She paused. Her hands kneaded each other, flowing from one interlaced pattern to the next, flickering in the light of the candles.

"When I told you about my idea to go to St. Mungo's, I was selfish," she continued. "I saw a glory for myself, helping Dumbledore in his fight against Voldemort. I also saw something else. I saw hope. I saw myself singlehandedly changing your allegiance, finding another ally to the Order."

Draco stirred.

"Stupid, I know. It's not for me to decide, or to change. But as I thought of this, I also blocked out something even more important. You see, when my mother—" She broke off. She turned away, opening and closing her hands. In a moment, she tried again, "When my mum died, I didn't really face her death. I didn't think about it. I forgot about it, really, and refused to recall it. As I sat there in the Library, I began to remember." She turned to him, appealing to him. "It hurt, Draco, it hurt more than you could imagine. The pain was so much I couldn't bear to follow through with my plan, not if it made me think of her.

"So I found the first opening I could, and ended it. I still think we should get permission first, if we were to ever carry through with the plan. I won't change my mind about that; this isn't life or death we're talking about here. I just thought it might be important that you know why I left, that there's more to the story than what you might have seen on the surface.

"That's all I came here to say."

There was silence. Hermione looked back at Draco, hands spread before her in a plea. Begging to be recognized, agreed with, understood. He stared back at her thoughtfully; he weighed her words, measuring their girth with an iron absolution. Neither moved for a long moment.

Draco crossed his arms, lifted his chin. "You're a good actress." He turned to the door, hand poised upon the knob.

"Wait. Where are you going?" Hermione asked, her voice rising with panic. "You didn't tell me what you thought. Concerning the plan, I mean."

He faced her. "What is there to think? I don't agree with you. I still think that this plan should be secret, that asking permission is suicidal. They're not going to let us go, Hermione, you must realize that. This secrecy — call it my way of curbing your selfishness. And your tongue, come to think of it. You can't tell anyone, and can't get any 'glory' for discovering the Dark Lord's idea."

Hermione let out her breath. Her hands leapt to her cheeks, resting there in frustration, pulling at the brown, frizzy hair framing her face. "Draco. Think logically. What happens if we're discovered? We're expelled."

"We won't get discovered."

"How are we supposed to even get out of here without a teacher's help? Neither of us can Apparate, and St. Mungo's is too far by broom. A teacher can help us with that."

"Transportation is easy," Draco dismissed. Hermione clenched her fists and pressed her teeth together until they groaned. "What we need is the name of the Muggle, if one survived. You don't need a teacher's permission for that; in fact, they're probably wondering why you haven't asked yet."

Hermione's eyes glazed and her breath came quickly in broken gasps. "You don't understand," she said, her voice breaking.

Draco's voice rose, overwhelming her plea. He paced in front of her, his body a whip as it turned corners swiftly and furiously. "I think I do understand, perhaps all too well. You want to know what I really think, Hermione? You really want to know? Fine. I think you're a coward. You're too afraid to do what's important because you're caught up in your bloody textbooks and parchment. You're scared to give your mother's death meaning. You're scared of understanding what's going on, and you're afraid of the burden that comes with the knowledge. You're just a frightened little girl, Hermione, scared of the dark, the dead, and herself."

Draco wrenched open the door, and swept out into the empty hall. Hermione stood still until she found the strength to stagger to a desk. As the students' chatter echoed through the corridor, she lowered her head to her arms, trying to separate her thoughts from the thrum of shock.

She didn't succeed.

* * *

"Pettigrew, the knife," Lucius Malfoy whispered, eyes slitted. The silver weight felt right as it fell into his palm, its length fit perfectly between wrist and finger. His pale hands caressed it, warming it with cruel intent.

"You see, Pettigrew," he murmured, still stroking the knife with maniacal care, "the next stage can be reached only by a door. Last time, the cut to nake this door was easy; I cut where the blood flowed through. It was intuitive that it came from somewhere else, so that by following the flow to the source, we would come to a new chamber. But here, there is a different story." He paused, scanning the round Womb slowly. The fetus suckled the blood in silence. "Pettigrew," he said sharply, "where would you make the cut?"

Wormtail was taken aback. He glanced around him, then pointed tremulously towards the wall opposite from the dark tunnel by which they arrived.

Malfoy laughed coldly. "This is why the Dark Lord chose me to lead this mission, and not you, my dear Pettigrew. _Think_. He told me, before we left, that 'The blood will lead us to the source.' Or, think of it this way: we're going backwards through the blood, Time. The Heart, where each individual life is given breath and where it is taken away, chronologically came after the Womb, where _all_ life was born. Do you have it now? Do you know where we make our door?"

Without waiting for an answer, Lucius Malfoy slowly unsheathed the knife, the silver metal humming in the stillness. He extended his arm, and the tip quivered as it pointed to the answer. It pointed to the fetus, where it lay in its nest of veined blood and fed on the red stream of on Time. It pointed to the fetus, the life that was created in the Womb, and the life that sprung the Heart into existence.

* * *

**A/N: **I know this chapter is a wee bit shorter, my dears, but it threw a lot at you. Things are about to get rocky for our two heroes — this was only the beginning.

_To clarify_: In the Fates scene, Cruelty's ambition is kicking in; she wants more than mere control over the puppets. Draco's mother's voice, by the way, was just her thoughts as she looked at a picture and reflected on him. It's one of those surreal experiences where you feel as if they're standing by your shoulder, when you can sense that someone's thinking about you. Similar to a deja vu, except relating to the present. With Draco, he felt she was thinking about him, and it was almost an afterthought that he realized he could understand what she was thinking (not magic, just an occurrence. It's happened to me, actually, even if I couldn't actually tell exactly what they were thinking...scary when it does, that's for sure). To clarify this latest Sensing scene (the dream), remember that the blood is Time. My metaphor for Time was that it was a huge flood of blood, carrying skulls and oxygen (death and life) to the living beings in this world. Lucius Malfoy and Wormtail are ready to move to the next stage in their Sensing journey, and in order to make the door, must cut through the fetus. You guys got it? If not, ask in a review or email, and I'll do my best to explain.

Okay, responses. They're going to have to be brief, I'm afraid. I meant to get this thing up last week, but school got in the way. If I'm going to get it up at all, I'm just going to have to sacrifice a bit.

**Fiona McKinnon: **Hello, doll! You should have gotten your answer, I think ("Did it mean Hermione would rather tell D.D. than get kicked out?"). She does want permission to leave; she thinks - knows - that they risk expulsion if they're caught. They can't go to St. Mungo's, now, in the middle of term! Hermione, ol' stickler to the rules. Much like myself, I'm afraid. Much love to you! Can't wait to hear your thoughts on this latest!

**Lady11Occult: **Hee hee hee! Your predictions made me smile. A couple of them were vaguely on track, the ones that were less...out there. Of course, you don't know what I'll do! I'll turn the tables all around on you! Hm...now that I think about it, maybe I'll even try to use a couple of those...I especially like the Doom Day scenario (Lucius and Voldy win)... Kisses to you, ma cherie!

**Callista: **Hellohellohellohellohello! (Runs into you and knocks you over with a HUGE hug.) I haven't heard from you in FOREVER. How's everything been? The summer months? So sorry I couldn't update - things were so chaotic - but I did write an extra three chapters, so I should have some padding. Unfortunately, I'm being overloaded with schoolwork, so we'll have to see how long updates take. I'm guessing three weeks, hoping two. Grrr...damn school. Ruining ALL our lives. Anyways, the romance is sort of picking up, isn't it? She actually cares what he thinks now—that's an improvement! I can't wait to hear from you, hun! Much much much love!

**May: **Hey, m'dear! (I know it's been awhile, eh?) Thanks so much for your review - my summer vacation was wonderful. (Where do you live, by the way? Only three months till your summer vacation, right?) I do try to make people think with this fic. When I took a break from writing over the summer, one of the things I did was to look around and read other's fics more closely. Really, when you look hard enough, all of them have some deeper meaning, the same way that the characters and their dilemmas pertain to real life. Still, I tried to make this fic intellectually driven (it's vaguely working out), so I'm glad someone's picking up on the deeper meanings. This particular chapter was a little less thinking and more action, but I still threw in some metaphors for you! The entire story, actually, was unbelievably fun to write. Hugs to you, my dear! Hope to hear from you soon!

**Lorett: **HELLO! You know, I haven't heard from you in ages. I left a review AND sent two emails, but somebody didn't write back (looks at you meaningfully). But of course, now that this thing is updated, you can communicate via review. I suppose that'll have to do. Anyways, your review. Lot of thoughts there, let's see if I can be concise... FATES: Yeah, reading a little too much into it. Shadow was a bad word choice there ('Shadows strained at the corners of Cruelty's veil, scrabbling for a hold in her pitted flesh as she crept towards the edge of the orange flames.'), but I couldn't think of another way to say it. It really was just darkness, not the puppets. KIDS: Yeah, unfortunately Draco's having some sexual fantasies, about no one in particular (though I rather liked the new life being born idea). It's just throwing his decaying relationship with Pansy into sharp contrast, that he's dreaming about someone else while she's dreaming about him. (Good observation, by the way, Pansy is a very good candidate to be Cruelty's shadow.) And yeah, it's still decaying, even though they've seemed to patch things up a bit. Just a brief lull, really, he's already slammed the door in her face this chappie. FETUS: Hope that this chapter cleared up that mess (where's the blood coming from - you were right, by the way). The last little section was a bit busy and confusing, I wasn't that happy with it, really. I should go back and make it a little clearer - it lost a lot of people. Not to mention it's slightly redundant. Anywho, interested to hear what you're going to say - this chapter was a little less thought and more action.

**Ally: **You're another one I haven't heard from! How are you, lovie? I hope everything's okay over there, that you're not too overwhelmed again. Anyways, I promised I'd keep these things short (and failed again), so onto the review: I'm so glad you like my Pansy. 'The realization that Draco was closed off from her, perhaps never again to resurface.' I know it seems like he HAS resurfaced, but remember he just closed the door on her face - again. Draco definitely doesn't have that much consideration for her well-being, not nearly enough to match her concern for his. I also love Harry and Ron - oblivious is definitely the right word. They're so much fun to write - I know so many people just like them. And as for Hermione's refusal to go to St. Mungo's...there's more to her story, as you see. She's a wee bit lost, too. You'll have to tell me if that meets your expectations. And no, Draco's and Hermione's estrangement is not permanent, I hope they're getting close to reconciliation. Can't wait to hear from you, m'love! Soooo many kisses and hugs and bouquets of flowers to you!

**Jiinx: **Hello, my dear! Been so long, eh? Well, the ice around Hermione and Draco WAS melting - the process seems to have halted right now - but don't be too sure it's growing back. Every lover needs a quarrel, right? Theirs just happens to be a bit pettier than most. And thanks for the compliment ("not cookie-cutter bullshit") - that's high praise. It meant a hell of a lot to me, I can tell you that. I tried to make it different, and I think it's beyond awesome that it's mostly succeeding. I can't wait to hear what you think about this chapter - a little different from the couple that came before it. Many hugs!

**Seghen: **Thanks so much for the review! I'm glad you like my Lucius Malfoy - there are only little snippets of him, so I don't have to delve too deep into his character. I agree with you, though - he and Snape are definitely the hardest to write. Snape especially. There are so many layers, so many thoughts built on thoughts built on more thoughts that it's hard to keep track where one begins and another ends. Hope to hear from you soon - so sorry for the long delay.

**LovesBitch2: **Ack - you're lost? Oh no! Still, the good news is that you're getting more and more of it. If you have any specific questions though (I know a lot of people get confused around the Lucius/Wormtail/Hermione thing and the Fates scenes), please ask. Anyways, thank you so much for your review - I'm glad you're enjoying it. I'm having a helluva time writing it, that's for sure.

**Minty:** Hey, darlin'! Ack - so sorry I didn't get around to posting earlier (during the summer). I've been bad. Ah, well. Anyways, good eyes for picking up on that line ("'I would have been helping them.' She did not find the truth in the statement, but he did not mind. It was important to keep his loyalties hidden, at least until he understood them himself). It was a pretty obvious implication declaring that he isn't exactly loyal to the Dark Lord, but neither is he interested in the Order. I wrote it with the thought of confusion inside, he assumes that he needs to help his father, that it's his duty and maybe even what he wants to do, but that there's another side to the story he hasn't discovered yet. I imply that he doesn't necessarily agree with everything they're doing, though he approves of a lot of it (it's not quickly - or easily - that you grow out of teachings you were taught since you could talk). I would have explained all this eventually, but disclosing it is not going to hurt the plot. Think of it as a little preview... So, I'm interested to hear what you think about this chapter. We're getting into high gear now, lovie!

**Accio: **My dearest! How are you? Are you in Europe yet, or leaving very soon? Ahhh, I'm so jealous. As I've said that these shout-outs were going to be short and have already outdone myself (how does that happen?), I'm going to skip straight to the review. (Email me as soon as you get the chance, hun.) So, I'm just going to do a quick recap on the Lucius/Wormtail thing: They're actually inside the Womb - the creepy eye way back when was the fetus's eye, but at that point I hadn't figured it out yet - and they're prepared to move to the next stage. In order to get to the next stage, in addition to slicing a door and an incantation, they also need to shed their own blood. They chose the fetus as the cutting point, because Lucius logically thinks that hey, the blood led them here (they followed the flow to the Heart, cut where the blood was leaking through the wall of the Heart and took the passage to the Womb), why not keep following it? It flows into the fetus, so that's where they'll make their door. As for the metaphors, the different stages have so far been the "mechanics" of how this world (universe?) functions: the Heart, where time is beat out, and the Womb, where life (the fetus) is born. Where to next? Can you guess? Now, your questions on the last chapter: 1) Yeah, overthinking a bit; the fires in the Common Rooms were just a common element to link together the change Draco and Hermione are going through - they don't relate to the Fates. If you got a connection however, great - that's even better, though the link was unintentional. 2) The "figure limp with obedience" is left unclear - Cruelty could be playing with Pansy or she could be playing with Draco. Because Pansy's got a cruelty of her own, too, though right now our sympathy is kind of with her. But you have to remember neither of them are nice people—Draco would have hit Pansy, I think, because his cool rage was of that nature. 5) I love Ron. He's so clueless, like you said. And great foreshadowing, too, we'll see if that prediction of suffering comes true... 6) Yes, the Fates did lead Hermione to the Library. That was a bit unclear - if I get a chance to edit, I'll do better with that, I hope. Right, the last two questions I've answered as best I can above. So, much love, my dear, hope to hear from you soon!

**Firebringer: **Thanks so much, m'love! I'm glad you're enjoying it so far—I hope to see you around. I'll be interested to see what you think of this chapter—any observations of our two young...friends? enemies? lovers? children? adults?

**Kayla: **I emailed you, I did! See? I can be relied on, most of the time. I hope you continue reading—I'll continue sending update emails if you want. In the meantime, tell me what you think? Any thoughts on this chapter, these ideas I'm putting out there? Thank you so much for your review, I'm glad you're enjoying this story, dearie!

**To everyone who's reading but not reviewing: thanks for stopping by. If you've got any questions or comments (I know this is a confusing story), please don't hesitate to drop a line. I'll do my best to answer.**

—Alison


	13. Voices

**Disclaimer: **Not mine. End of story.

**Quick Summary: **Hermione and Draco have determined that the key to discovering Voldemort's plans is to go to St. Mungo's and talk with the Muggle that survived. However, Hermione has shown herself to be adverse to the course of action out of an irrational fear of what they might discover about her mother and the way she died - she hasn't faced her mother's death properly, remember, and is frightened to think that there might be a plan, a reason, for the way she died. Draco's reasons for finding Voldemort's plans remain ambiguous. The climax of their confrontation follows (you may want to go back a chapter and reread). _With the Fates: _Passion's back in control of the fire (the puppet stage), Cruelty's ambitious mask has slipped over her eyes, Snake is showing portions of his evil plan at last (part of which includes a knife, though that doesn't resurface for a couple of chapters). _The Sensing sequence: _Lucius raises the knife in the Womb, prepared to cut a door into the next stage of their journey. Hermione is currently crouched below the huge body of a fetus, and Wormtail is frightened for his life, and for good reason too.

* * *

_Last time -  
_

Hermione let out her breath. Her hands leapt to her cheeks, resting there in frustration, pulling at the brown, frizzy hair framing her face. "Draco. Think logically. What happens if we're discovered? We're expelled."

"We won't get discovered."

"How are we supposed to even get out of here without a teacher's help? Neither of us can Apparate, and St. Mungo's is too far by broom. A teacher can help us with that."

"Transportation is easy," Draco dismissed. Hermione clenched her fists and pressed her teeth together until they groaned. "What we need is the name of the Muggle, if one survived. You don't need a teacher's permission for that; in fact, they're probably wondering why you haven't asked yet."

Hermione's eyes glazed and her breath came quickly in broken gasps. "You don't understand," she said, her voice breaking.

Draco's voice rose, overwhelming her plea. He paced in front of her, his body a whip as it turned corners swiftly and furiously. "I think I do understand, perhaps all too well. You want to know what I really think, Hermione? You really want to know? Fine. I think you're a coward. You're too afraid to do what's important because you're caught up in your bloody textbooks and parchment. You're scared to give your mother's death meaning. You're scared of understanding what's going on, and you're afraid of the burden that comes with the knowledge. You're just a frightened little girl, Hermione, scared of the dark, the dead, and herself."

Draco wrenched open the door, and swept out into the empty hall. Hermione stood still until she found the strength to stagger to a desk. As the students' chatter echoed through the corridor, she lowered her head to her arms, trying to separate her thoughts from the thrum of shock.

She didn't succeed_.

* * *

_

_ Chapter 13 – Voices_

Snake bent over his fire, his eyes glinting in the light of the blue flames. Greed poured from his fingertips, allowing his hand passage in the icy flames. The drumming trees – silent now, content in death's shadow – gave the flames their full-hearted permission to dance on their bones, dark with ash.

Laughter clawed at his throat, begging to scramble free from his body. He opened his mouth, letting the cruel sound echo over the field, carry to the distant Fates. He was close, so close to his purpose. The storm above him raged on, carrying tidings of war and heartbreak and suffering. His doing, all of it.

He raised his hand, a long, supple rod clenched in his fingers, and traced a convoluted ring in the air. It shimmered, then lowered slowly to the flames where it hardened and grew thick in the freezing smoke. One ring, to be followed by many more. A chain to be worn about the ankles, the wrists, and the neck. His eyes looked out at the Fates.

The ancient sisters cackled, unaware that their servitude was about to become slavery.

* * *

"Her name is Eleanor Horrigan."

Hermione sat down across from him, her hand still splayed across the page Draco had been reading. He glanced at her irritably, gingerly sliding the book from beneath her fingers. His eyes caressed the page for a moment longer, then abruptly closed the cover and moved the text aside, staring at her above a severe mouth. She tried a smile, but it wavered and slipped beneath her skin when he failed to return it.

She sighed. _Here we go again, _she thought drily. "You're still mad at me, Draco? You shouldn't be. I just gave in. I surrendered. You won." She paused. "Really, if you think about it, I should be the angry one. At least I've never called you a coward."

Draco said nothing.

"Okay, so I have a couple of times, but not since we've become friends," she conceded. At his silence, she clicked her tongue impatiently. "You do consider us friends, don't you?" she asked him. All her hesitation was lost, now; at the risk, her confusion was set aside, whether it was personal, social, or emotional.

"I'm still deciding," Draco finally said. "I've had to reevaluate my opinion of you." He didn't bother to add that the change was negative; they both knew it.

"I expected as much," Hermione said. She lapsed into silence for a moment, the space between her eyebrows puckered in hard thought. When she spoke again, the words were a friend's—casual, unassuming—but spoken in a professional tone. "Right. I've done my part, and got the name of the Muggle at St. Mungo's. You were right, you know, it was easy. Professor McGonagall even asked what had taken me so long, though she did warn me not to visit until I was entirely ready." She paused. "Basically, she said that I was forbidden to go there until one of the Order could accompany me." She glanced at Draco once, her accusation carefully masked beneath politeness. "So, now that we know our mission really is off-limits, how do you propose we get there?"

His silver eyes burned. He had waited, allowed her to come snuffling to his palm, to be lured back to him with the welts of his punishment still fresh upon her pale hide, and had been rewarded for his patience. He leaned across the table towards her, jerking a corner of paper that stuck out of his book. A plan fluttered to the table, full of scribbles and arrows that contradicted themselves, furiously limping from one edge to the next.

"Easy," he whispered, glancing around the Library for eavesdroppers. "I've got it all figured out."

He pointed to a single word, circled many times in blue and black ink: Hogsmeade.

* * *

The sky hung low and heavy over the castle, the grey clouds soft and damp around Gryffindor Tower. The trees in the Forbidden Forest were unnaturally still, their budding leaves a sheer sheet of green in the horizon. Once, a wet wind tumbled through, disturbing the silence with a brief scratching of limbs and bare bark. The world was waiting.

Hermione woke at dawn, dread filling her with black hope. She rolled over on her stomach, face watching the light swell in the east. Why had she agreed to this? There was still a chance, she knew, a chance to just fail to show up. But she knew that then Draco would never forgive her. She knew that she valued his friendship for a reason she was just beginning to discover, and that she wasn't prepared to let it slide out of her grasp so quickly. She fought the feeling of desperation away, and turned her gaze inwards to her breath. A blue being nestled in her body, beating a steady drum: _in, out, in, out, in..._

Harry would love this, she thought ruefully. A chance to discover Voldemort's plans, a chance to feel the freedom of danger. For a brief moment, she contemplated telling him the truth about what she was planning to do. She watched his expression in her mind as the hurt filled his face as he discovered her deceit; she watched it turn to reserved apprehension and the joy of revenge on his parents' murderer. But the possibility fell slowly to the floor; again, Draco's friendship was in jeopardy. She felt guilt wriggle in the pit of her stomach, but forced it to kneel subdued in stillness with the flat of her hand. She would not think of it. She would not think of how perhaps there were two more friendships in jeopardy; if she chose Draco over Harry and Ron, there would only be blame and the broken pieces of the past.

She walked with Harry and Ron to Hogsmeade, the March weekend warm with the chance of beginnings. She carried a small tin box under her coat, steeling herself for the lies that were to follow. The cobblestone road below their feet was straight, pausing only at corners and walkways that branched to the shops.

"Should we check out Zonko's?" Ron suggested half-heartedly. He wondered why the three of them even bothered to come down here anymore, for many of the sights had lost their charm after three years.

Harry shrugged, and led the group towards the crowd at the door of the joke shop. Hermione hung back. "Actually, I can't come" she said. Her mouth was dry.

Ron looked back. "Why not?" he asked.

"I've set up an interview in the Three Broomsticks with Dobby. It's his day off, and I thought we might discuss elf rights." The lie was easy on her tongue. If you looked closely, you couldn't even see the stitches. "You two should really come along, you know; it's important to show a strong face to a possible future client. Dobby could be a valuable asset to our campaign, he has loads of ideas."

The two boys exchanged wearied looks and cut her off with empty excuses.

"Well, I don't know—"

"I mean, if it's all the same to you, we might—"

"—I kind of wanted to see whether it held up to Fred and George's, now that they've opened up—"

"—we might opt out. You don't really mind, do you? It would be loads easier without us, really."

"Harry, you at the very least should show up, you haven't seen Dobby in ages—"

"Hermione, we have _homework_," Ron said, dragging Harry away. "We're going to have to make this a short visit anyways, so at least let us do something we like. We'll meet you up at the castle later tonight."

Their long legs carried them quickly across the square, backs immune to her sigh of relief. She hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and set off towards the Three Broomsticks, a grey-shingled pub that squatted on the edge of the square. She slipped inside the yellow warmth; it was crowded with students escaping the low sky, fingers clenched around bottles of butterbeer. She thought to herself again that Madame Rosmerta, the pretty owner of the shop, would make twice the money if she brewed a cool drink—a Pepper Down rather than a Pepper-Up—for the warmer days. The woman had no business sense.

She scanned the student body, and glimpsed a shock of pale hair bent over a table in the far corner. She wove her way between the loud students, carefully backtracking when she almost stumbled upon Professor Flitwick and Professor McGonagall talking low and earnestly together. After squeezing by the door that led up to Madame Rosmerta's quarters above the pub, she pulled out a chair and sat gingerly on the edge.

"I'm here," she said quietly. "Let's get this over with."

Draco looked up, slowly folding the parchment he had been scanning. He watched her fidget in her seat several times, eyes darting to identify any eavesdroppers that hid themselves in the throng. "Should we go over the plan again?" he asked.

"No. I've got it. Pretty straightforward, isn't it?"

Draco hesitated. No, he decided, it wouldn't do to add to her prior vacillation; she was a woman, and thus weak. There was nothing to keep her from forgetting her promises. "Do you have your questions planned already?"

"No, no, I don't. It doesn't matter, I'll think of some on the way. Let's leave. I don't like waiting." It was true, she thought. She felt far better moving, fighting, planning. A pause was fatal, a rust-tipped knife lodged between her ribs. It pricked her now. She reached her hand to the blue-bodied breath inside her, steadied her clear conscience with the drumbeat.

"Fair enough," Draco said, standing. He lazily kicked his chair aside and pushed himself through the students the same way Hermione had arrived. From behind, Hermione thought that he looked as if he was moving through mud, each movement sustained and slow. Anyone could see through him if they had eyes, she thought.

As Draco reached the door of Madame Rosmerta's quarters, he paused and turned back, watching Hermione walk toward him critically. He caught her eyes; they were bare, collected, cups spilling brown assurance. Transparent, crystal mud, he thought, and laughed inwardly at his surprise. Gryffindors were all the same, he reminded himself. Heroics. It was the only reason she rose to his bait; she had no true grip on the how and the why she acted. Nobility clouded the mind, polluted the clarity of motives and the sense of self each person instinctively possessed. It was the reason so many bowed to pressure; though courage was rumored to make you tall, it was simply a response to peer opinion, a salute to their decision and a promise made with honor to follow. Courage didn't exist, there was only man and the master. It was why Gryffindor was such a joke. Why Hermione was such a joke, he reminded himself.

As if to prove his point, he whispered with barbed tongue, "Stop acting so damn suspicious, Hermione. Remember: casual. You're drawing attention to yourself."

Hermione reddened. "I'm not doing anything more than what you're—"

"Now, if you would be so kind as to look out from behind your hair, watch Madame Rosmerta. I need to fiddle with this stupid door."

"It's: _Alohamora_," she murmured from the corner of her mouth. Draco felt the sting of his words return to bite into the flesh of his shoulder. He knew that, she didn't have to be so patronizing. "She's looking this way," she added calmly.

"Well, block me and strike up some conversation with the people at the table next to you, then!" he said. He glanced towards the bar, where Madame Rosmerta was staring at Hermione.

Hermione moved in front of Draco, bending over to converse with a couple of Ravenclaw Second Years, racking her brain for an excuse to talk to them. When her mouth dropped open and the words sprang forward, she hardly even knew what she said, only that she spoke desperately. Her hands flew wildly through the air, illustrating a point not even she understood. The twelve-year-olds traded looks, nodding politely when the flow slowed, only to be rewarded with more words strung together haphazardly. She glanced at the bar only once. Madame Rosmerta had turned her back.

"We're through!" Draco whispered behind her. He vanished through the crack in the doorway.

Hermione made her excuses swiftly, hoping that the crazed impression she left on them would be enough to blind the Second Years for the moments in which she made her escape. She backed away from the table, and casting one last look around the pub, slipped inside to the cool well of the stairway. She shut the door behind her.

It was dark, shapes barely illuminated by the blue light that wormed its way through the bottom of a door at the top of a staircase. She didn't see Draco on the stairs, and hoped he waited at the top. She had long since buried the fear of expulsion, she now had to face the dripping dread of a mistake: mistaken morals, mistaken motives, mistaken trust. She locked her eyes on the door at the top of the stairs. One step at a time, nothing for it, she whispered to herself. She put one foot on the bottom stair, and it creaked sharply in the silence. At the noise, hands moved out of the darkness to find her wrists and she fell backwards with a cry, slamming her slim body to the wall and thrashing outward with her elbows. The wood slid splinters into her back.

"So bloody jumpy," Draco muttered. He rubbed a blooming bruise on his cheek.

"That was completely unnecessary," Hermione told him, her voice slightly strained. She took a breath, ready to tell him that this stupid arrogance, these childish tricks had to stop if they were to continue. They were partners, not man and master. "I think—I don't think she saw us," Hermione whispered. Not now, she decided. She pulled herself free from his grasp and put her ear to the door. Her hands found and clutched the tin S.P.E.W. box in her robes as she listened. "No, we're okay."

She turned, but Draco had already vanished. She sighed and followed his dusty footprints up the steep stairs and through the door at the top of the staircase, blinking in the sudden light as she found herself in the wide, many-windowed apartment above the clamor of the shop. A couch sat low in front of a fireplace; a small table and chairs basked under a round window. She glimpsed a blue bed through a half-opened door off the open kitchen. The rooms reeked of clean and simple living, and orderliness echoed off the orange walls.

She caught motion in the corner of her eye and spun on her heel to join it. Draco emerged from the bedroom, stumbling slightly on the edge of a red rug stretched across the coarse wood floor. "You're not supposed to go in there!" she hissed. "This is her _home_, not a museum."

"She has protections about," he said. "I need to try to turn them off. The door took long enough on its own. I can't light a fire until they're gone. Standard wizarding protection, but I can't figure it out with this..." His voice trailed off, his fingers gestured limply before falling to his side. He blinked slowly.

"Are you—are you okay?" Hermione asked. His grey eyes looked shocked and glassy; her fingers touched his brow, feeling for a fever. He pulled away.

"I'll be fine. Listen, did you bring the powder?" She produced the tin. "Good. Will you try to find a way to shut these things down? They're giving me a headache."

"What things?"

"Just do it, will you?" He collapsed on the couch.

As soon as she entered the bedroom, Hermione suddenly understood. In the echo of her first footsteps, a whispering filled her ears. The words were vague and uncertain, but their intent was clear. No one would be able to think clearly with the hiss leaking through his or her mind, in one ear and out the other. She shook her head to clear it without success, lifted her eyes to the bed in front of her. There, she saw the reason for Draco's shocked appearance.

There was a corpse, its separated head resting beside it on the mattress.

She recoiled, horrified. She stumbled against the wall, hid her eyes from the grey, colorless flesh that hung from its limbs. Behind her, the door shut. The hissing roared in her ears, told her to look up, examine the body closely. She obeyed.

The body was not made of fluid and bone, she saw, but of paper. Of millions and millions of faces, eyes staring and scowling at her from fingers, elbows, knees. There were drawings, magazines, newspapers, photos, all blanched and crumbling from the use of dark spells. Magic for making pieces become whole, for making life out of nothing. Hermione's wide gaze shifted to the head. It's eyes were closed, mouth slack. It's mouth was made of many mouths, its ears made of many ears—no whole faces anywhere.

"Starved," Hermione murmured to herself. "She's starved for company."

And the eyes opened. They were terrible eyes, filled with jealousy and a repulsive intelligence. Its gaze flickered to the idle body beside it, commanded it to move. With a cold stiffness in its joints, an awkwardness no oil could mend, it creaked off the bed. Its hands opened in front of it, one carrying the eyes and the terrible sound of voices.

_Starved, starved, _the voices mocked, laughing hoarsely. _She's not the only one who's starved._

Hermione swallowed. She shifted away, towards the white door. Her hand found the knob of the bedroom door behind her. It was locked.

_Soon will be, won't she? _they murmured. _She won't last long. We drive you mad, until you can't even remember the taste of food or the sound of water or the sense of wind. You'll forget companionship, you will. You won't hear anything soon. _The body paused, its empty neck turning from side to side. It lifted the head high above its neck

"Listen," she said, fighting the cold fingers of dread that clutched her throat, "I didn't mean to upset you." Somehow, instinctively, she knew that the head could not be connected to the body, that then there would be a terror unleashed that no human could withstand. That she'd fall, broken, next to Draco, before being physically torn apart by the clumsy fingers of the grey body. Grey Death, she thought, and found took humor, her last laugh, in the irony.

_He didn't either, did he? No, the little runt took one look at us and fled. Too cowardly to confront us, just he was too cowardly to ask permission to enter here._

"Please, we don't mean Madame Rosmerta any harm—"

_Yes, that's what they all say. You just want to borrow, you greedy-fingered wizards. It begins as just a favor — the tea kettle, a single spoon — until you want more. You want the use of her bed, her heart, and then you want her life._

"No, you don't understand. We just want to use her fire to visit the hospital—" That terrible face, staring. She could not think...couldnotspeakcouldnotactcouldnotbreakfree from this helpless cycle downwards.

_See? See? All the same. Nothing, until it becomes everything. It's why our mistress listens to us—me. We are—I am—the power of many in one, the memory of her anguish entered into the material world. Nothing, until it becomes everything, don't you see? It starts with one, a stepping stone, but one stone spreads until it makes a path, ironed by the footsteps of the infinity that follow. We're—I'm—Revenge: immortal, wise, and her adoring servant. _The head and its many mouths laughed again, sharing an irony she couldn't see. _We—I—could never hurt her, my Rosmerta._ The head paused above the neck. The hands turned it, showed her the empty back of its head, before slowly turning it back to the front.

"Please." Her voice broke. She sank to her knees, despair tight about her ears. She couldn't think, couldn't feel past the terror the voices fed her. They shoved it in her heart with a silver spoon, more and more and more until she thought it would burst with the blackness. "Please, let us go."

And then, blessedly, the discourse was broken, the descent of the head frozen. The voices rasped on, unintelligibly, malignantly, but over them, the warm sound of a human voice. A woman's voice. Hermione clung to it, driftwood that floated in the madness, and felt tears push their way down her cheeks. Slowly, she began to feel her mind wake and swim to the surface, gasping for air.

"I saw them go up the stairs. Two of your students, Professor, though I don't have the slightest idea why. You ought to teach them better, you know, it's outrageous that we have to chase them down every weekend after they violate my privacy. If it goes on, I don't see how we can continue to have these outings, and that's bad for the business as well as the—"

"It's quite all right, Rosmerta. There's no need to get upset. I'll take care of it, you can be sure that the students will be punished accordingly."

Hermione's head snapped upwards, her hands scrabbled on the floor as she stumbled from the room. The door to the bedroom had unlocked. "Draco! Draco!" she called softly. She saw him lying on the couch, pale-faced and grim. She shook him, one eye trained on the door. He didn't notice her. The voices surged around her ears again, rising in strength, battering her skull. She closed her eyes and leaned her shoulder against them, shoving them aside with all her mental force. She stood up straighter, her shoulders lightened.

"Hold on a moment, Professor. I've got to lift the protections for you to enter."

"It's good to know that some of you take this seriously, at least. I was very disappointed in the Ministry, the standard spell packet issued to every wizard was sadly untrustworthy. Really, they're simple to break, a two-year-old could do it even without a wand. I don't know what Scrimgeour was thinking. It wouldn't have taken long to test, and if 'nothing is so important as security,' as he constantly reminds us, he would have had the decency to write a good protection spell."

"Stand back, please, Professor."

Hermione had only a moment to act. She wrenched Draco upright and dragged him toward the fireplace. At the base of the hearth, she saw the tin box lying open and grabbed a fistful of the grey Floo powder stolen from Professor McGonagall's office. Leaning Draco on her shoulder, her other hand dug frantically in her pocket until her fist wrapped around the smooth stick of her wand. No magic, she knew, until the wards had been alleviated.

"_Elevante!"_

The door opened, exposing Madame Rosmerta's worried face and the rigid back of Professor McGonagall, who ran her fingers over the golden threads of a fading spell at the head of the staircase.

"_Incendio!" _A flash of flame in the grate, a sudden eruption of green, and then —

Emptiness.

* * *

Hermione stepped out of the grate into the empty lobby of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Injuries and Maladies, dragging the unconscious Draco Malfoy behind her. The Welcome Witch at the desk barely even gave them a glance, but continued to doodle in the air with her wand, shaping patterns with gold smoke spouting from the end. Hermione laid Draco down on the cold floor, and whispered, "_Ennervate!_"

He groaned and rolled over on his side, arms crossed over his stomach. Hermione sat back on her heels to wait, feeling the silence ring in her head. The voices had ceased when Madame Rosmerta had lifted the protections; her tongue had been so clumsy with shock, she was surprised they even ended up in the right place.

"Where are we?" Draco croaked, sitting up. He winced and put a hand to his head. "Actually, no, scratch that. What happened?"

"Exactly what was supposed to happen," she answered. Her voice was bitter, biting. "We nearly got caught, you know. Madame Rosmerta saw us leave, and got Professor McGonagall to come up to arrest us."

Draco swore. "Did they see who we were?"

"Madame Rosmerta did, but Professor McGonagall was turned the other way." She looked away from him. She was angry, annoyed that they hadn't dealt with it better, that she hadn't anticipated it. Most of all, she was furious that she had been frightened. "Get up. We need to finish this up before three o'clock, so we can head back with the other students." She glanced at the clock above the receptionist's head; it was past noon. She left Draco sitting on the floor without another word.

"Excuse me," she said, standing before the reception desk. She glanced back and saw Draco struggling to follow her, palm slipping on his sweat-drenched forehead. "Could you please tell me which room Eleanor Horrigan is staying in?"

The woman, tight blond curls bobbing suspiciously, looked down at her. "Who's asking?"

"Family." She didn't add more. She hoped the woman didn't know that the patient was a Muggle.

"Fourth floor, third door on your left," she said, consulting a list. She paused, then added in a softer voice, "The closed ward. I'm sorry."

"That's quite all right," Hermione said, gesturing for Draco to follow. She smiled at the receptionist and stepped onto the gold-netted lift, the doors shutting quietly behind Draco's robes. It rose slowly and steadily, pressing softly against their feet.

"I didn't know she was in the closed ward," Draco said to the silence.

Hermione didn't answer. Draco stared at his reflection on the ceiling. It made him look too yellow and drawn, he thought, and looked away. Only man and the master, he said to himself, and grimaced. If there was only man and the master, he reflected, how was it that she saved his life, his sanity, his life? He had offered her no incentive to do such a thing, and yet she had responded with great personal risk. What was that, was there a word for that? More than loyalty, more than that stupid, self-righteous value they called nobleness. Selflessness? No, not even Hermione was that idiotic.

Draco felt discomfort tickle the seat of his gut. The answer was there, in front of him, but the curtains of his eyes had been drawn. No light would be let in or let out. He shifted his mind away from the shaded domain, a site of constant battle, of his accomplice. He fixed his eyes on the spot between here and there where it glinted in midair, just beyond his vision. The truth buried itself next to the rusted spade which had created its grave; nothing was progressing, all was caught in the gasp between this breath and the next. He firmly denied and ignored the pattering twaddle of a thought in the rear of his mind, the one insisting that his pretended respect was becoming solid, real, and that maybe Hermione ought to have been a Slytherin. And to that he answered, the blood. The blood makes the man. If anything, his tool is simply sharper than he could have hoped.

_His tool._ He shoved his hands in the deep pockets of his robe and traced the edge of the plan with his thumb. It's corners cut into his finger; he was finally here, so close to finally _knowing. _Knowing what the Dark Lord planned, knowing how to stop it, knowing how to help. He shifted his weight.

Hermione pressed her hands palm to palm in the silence, felt the rough skin grate in a dual sensation. Her thoughts leapt to her mouth.

"Have you ever done that trick where you cross your fingers, then rub them with a third? It feels like there are two fingers touching the place where they cross." She paused, considering the line where her hands met. "I always felt that when I prayed. The physical touches the mental touches the divine. Connection. It's a pity I didn't like church. It's times like these that I wish I could still pray."

She dropped her hands. She wished that her practical knowledge didn't so often interfere with the whimsical, ideological part of herself. The books and her carefully lettered conclusions told her that there was no God, or if there was He was but a pawn of the Fates. The Fates, who puppeted all life and gave her no choice but to comply, soft as warm clay. The Fates, who had killed her mother.

She rested her head against the cage of the lift. Its steady hum drowned the anticipation of her mother's death, drowned the expectations and the horror of the reason why she died. Hermione didn't want to know, she asserted. She wanted the death to remain just that - a death. Just a fact, not a story. Yes, she didn't want her mother's death to be one murder in a thousand, without a reason, but she didn't need to know it.

Her tongue tasted the acid of a lie.

The doors slid open. Hermione stopped moving, frozen with the sight of the tiled hallway, steeped in the stench of disinfectant and sickness.

"Lead the way," Draco said. She turned a stiff neck and looked at him; his voice echoed with a different ring, and upon examination, she judged the change to be wholly unintentional, merely influenced by a decision made in the dry folds of his subconsciousness. His eyes were clear and focused on her, observing her with an intensity she instinctively rose to meet. And where once he would have been brutal and grating, his touch was curious, as if he wanted to see what would happen if he left her heating on the stove for an hour without outside contact. With a hand the color of a spider's underbelly, he pushed her out into the corridor.

* * *

Lucius Malfoy stood next to the fetus, lip curled. He gazed into its right eye, where the yellow iris stared at and through him. The thing was blind, hardly alive. It breathed, yes, and needed also. But it couldn't want. It couldn't think. The fetus couldn't use its senses: couldn't taste the satisfaction of hunger when filled; couldn't hear the heartbeat that drummed inside it; couldn't see the threat that stood before it. Sensing, Malfoy thought, was what truly made something come alive. If he could feel compassion, it would only be for those things that could feel hurt and gratitude and wonder.

His foot stirred within his boot. He wanted to teach it to feel, wanted to make it scream and writhe and bleed. He wanted to kick it, to pummel it, to make it gasp. This was what he hated about childhood, why he had distanced himself when his son was born, nearly blind and squealing. At least the infant could feel, even if he couldn't think clearly enough to find what it meant and how to stop it. Malfoy shoved aside the shame at being like that himself when he was younger, told himself that he had never been as dead as this fetus, sleeping and nerveless. He pushed away the impulse to torture, to teach. The time wasn't now, and his master was waiting.

He raised the knife, admiring the point as it shivered in hesitation. He took careful aim, cold and ready, and with sudden motion, plunged it into the fetus's eye. He heard a sharp hiss from behind him as Wormtail turned away, cowardly to the last. He pulled his arm upward, made a square in the mass of blindness, in the life that wasn't even truly alive. Hermione, curled tightly and invisibly below Lucius' Malfoy's feet, felt the warmth of blood spill onto her neck.

And then, surprising Malfoy at last, the fetus began to cry.

* * *

**A/N: **Whew! What a chapter - my longest by far. A lot happened, but I think it's pretty straightforward (nothing too twisty). I'm so sorry for the long delay in posting, but I went to Italy on an exchange trip for my school, and make up work has been intense. Updating may well be sporadic - once every three to four weeks - but I will work extremely hard to actually make those deadlines, providing nothing unexpected occurs like it did over the past two months.

So author notes are now illegal. Sigh. However, I _will _take the time to do review responses. I think that it's very important to answer all questions that you guys may have. Please bear with me as I juggle my time to answer both last chapter's and this chapter's. Of course, that's no reason not to review!

**The biggest thank you to all my wonderful reviewers. You are a huge part of making this story worthwhile, and I have no intention of abandoning it.**

** You got questions? I got answers! Drop a line, and I'll try to clear things up. As always, I know that this story is confusing, and I'd be thrilled to help.**

Love,  
Alison


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